Atomic Show #353 – Assil Halimi, CEO and Co-Founder, Apollo Atomics

Apollo Atomics is developing a line of integral pressurized water reactors that builds on 70 years worth of operational experience with materials, chemistry, fuels, supply chains and training. The company is implementing a key improvement that they believe will significantly reduce cost, space and weight. They are planning to replace conventional shell and tube steam generators with printed circuit heat steam generators with far greater heat transfer surface area per unit volume. According to the company’s design calculations and early physical modeling, their technology can shrink the size of a steam generator by a factor of 20 while also giving them the ability to produce superheated steam. Printed circuit heat exchangers (PCHEs) are not unknown or untested; they have made inroads into markets like floating LNG production platforms, but adoption has so far been limited. Assil Halimi, the CEO and Co-Founder of Apollo Atomics, visited the Atomic Show to describe his company and its innovative spin on the well established light water reactor. We talked about the advantages of far smaller steam generators that can transfer the same amount of heat and the transformation of the enormous components from virtually hand made works of art to something that can be mass manufactured in a factory. We talked about several technologies, including the mPower and NuScale Power Module, that appear to be very similar but have not achieved market traction. Assil described how Apollo’s Compact Steam Generator improves the situation. Assil also provided an overview of Apollo’s strategy of integrating powerful AI tools from the very beginning of design and manufacturing. The company has a long way to go and a great deal of catching up to do, but they are moving fast and taking advantage of technologies that were not available to the current leaders in the light water reactor industry. Warning: This show is a lot more technical than most Atomic Shows. The topic warrants the details. Disclosure: Nucleation Capital is an investor in Apollo Atomics.