Opinion
Bernauer: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is not blocking nuclear innovation
“The way I see it, the NRC are not really blocking things.”
Assertion Open · timeframe May 2027
Radiant microreactors meet NRC radiation limits outside a 35-foot perimeter
“We are down at one megawatt, so enough power for 1000 homes. And we can mass produce these in a factory, deliver them to a site, and with no infrastructure just outside of a 35 foot fence line, you can operate them and be at the NRC public dose limit for a rea…”
Opinion
Bernauer: Making life multi-planetary requires nuclear technology to succeed
“The mission of making life multi-planetary It needs to have nuclear technology for that to really blossom and to succeed”
Disclosure
Bernauer: Microreactors can be factory-built at 50 units per year
“You can make a one megawatt reactor that is factory constructed, 50 units a year, so a reactor every week coming off the line, and then you can transport that by land, sea, or air to any place in the world.”
Assertion Supported
Ceramic-coated TRISO nuclear fuel cannot melt down up to 1600°C
“The temperature limit of the fuel becomes this extremely high value, and you can go to about 1600 Celsius before there's an appreciable failure rate of the ceramic coated fuel. So what it means is you can't melt down the fuel.”
Assertion Contradicted
No new nuclear reactor design has been fueled in 50 years
“There's no new nuclear design that has been fueled in the U S in the last 50 years.”
Assertion Open · timeframe May 2027
Radiant's Kaleidos microreactor can become operational within two days on site
“With a reactor like this, that can be quickly moved and doesn't need a lot of infrastructure. You can be operating it in about two days after getting it on a site, which means you can use it for disaster relief.”
Prediction Didn’t hold up
Bernauer predicts Radiant will complete and ship a reactor in 2025
“Twenty-twenty-four will be the last year that we're playing around with the analysis paralysis and the design and answering all the questions, the regulator and simulating things in the twin. And twenty-twenty-five is going to be actually building the thing up…”
Prediction Held up
Bernauer predicts multiple nuclear entities will conduct fuel tests in 2026
“And I think others are going to do that same thing in that same year. So it won't even be just us. It'll be several different entities.”
Assertion Supported
Radiant microreactors cost tens of millions versus billions for conventional reactors
“So the, I mean, the really big ones that we have now are on the order of a few billion dollars for reactor. A tiny little one that I'm working on is on the order of tens of millions of dollars, but you know, everyone's design is quite a bit different, but it's…”
Assertion Open · timeframe May 2029
German operators proved safety by leaving overheating nuclear reactor unmonitored overnight
“There's a HTGR reactor in Germany, AVR, where the operators would actually just leave the operating room, And allow the system to overheat and they would leave it and leave it overnight in that state and then come back and then start operating the next day.”
Disclosure
Bernauer began researching nuclear power while designing SpaceX Mars systems
“But I also worked on Hyperloop and on the boring company, kind of ideas that came from that while I was there and on Mars systems, which is how I started to look at nuclear.”
Disclosure
Radiant microreactor contains 120 million poppy seed-sized ceramic fuel kernels
“What we're doing is these tiny poppy seed size kernels of fuel. There are about a hundred and twenty million of them. For a hundred kilograms of uranium and this is all in a core that's, you know, only four feet in diameter.”
Assertion Supported
Helium gas coolant cannot absorb neutrons or become radioactive
“We use helium gas because it can't become radioactive either. And it's a gas. It can't actually absorb a neutron, which is what makes something radioactive when it starts out not being radioactive.”
Assertion Supported
US gigawatt-scale nuclear reactors are derived from a 1950s design
“And that's why today we have, I think the number is about 93 operating gigawatt scale light water reactors. They're all based on that one design from that moment in time, way back when.”
Disclosure
Radiant will publicly release nuclear-grade graphite test results to qualify suppliers
“So we are testing nuclear grade graphite right now. We actually will make the results of that available to everyone. So it will just qualify a U S domestic American made nuclear grade graphite supplier to a higher degree”
Disclosure
Radiant has raised about $60 million from a16z and USV
“And then we raised a series A with Union Square Ventures in 20, 22. And then a little over a year ago, we did a series B with Andreessen and raised a forty-five million dollar round. So when you add all that up, we've raised about sixty million in total ventur…”
Disclosure
Radiant has won seven government contracts totaling approximately $8.7 million
“We have also won, I want to say it's seven government contracts at this point. And that totals about 8.7 million. And no other forms of financing.”
Assertion Supported
Uranium's negative thermal coefficient automatically shuts microreactors down if cooling fails
“If that helium pump fails, the system will start to heat up. And as it heats up, it doesn't even need to heat up very much. It heats up a little bit. The reactor goes subcritical and shuts itself off. And this is
this is true for most reactor technologies bec…”
Disclosure
Radiant plans to fundraise in summer 2024 before first reactor test
“We are going to fundraise again pretty soon this summer. It'll be the last time to invest before the first reactor in 50 years gets fueled and tested”
Assertion Supported
Bernauer spent 12 years at SpaceX after consecutive launch failures
“Yeah, I spent 12 years at SpaceX had joined when they had failed two rockets in a row but I thought it was just a big and beautiful mission to lower the cost of launch, to make life multi-planetary and that's why I did that for 12 years, but I worked on all so…”
