Kurt Terrani, Standard Nuclear

Interest in new nuclear energy generation is currently at unprecedented levels that has been unseen in the United States in decades, if not ever. Alongside this interest in generation, private and public interest in the nuclear energy supply chain is surging with billions of dollars in unlocked opportunities set to turbocharge industry, manufacturing, and services that have faced stagnation for most of our lifetimes. One of the most important but little understood aspects of the nuclear energy supply chain is the manufacturing of nuclear fuel, a manufacturing operation in the U.S. that has developed all domestic needs for decades from just three facilities to supply almost one in five Americans with their electricity needs. While significant attention both in the form of public and private investments has been focused on earlier portions of the nuclear fuel supply chain such as conversion and enrichment (refining processes that create useable feedstock material for manufacturing but have limited domestic commercial capacity), manufacturing nuclear fuel is becoming more and more a focus. Advanced reactor developers are looking to utilize new fuel forms and technologies, which have even more limited manufacturing capacity in the United States as compared to the capacity available and utilized by the existing fleet.   Creating significant new fuel manufacturing capacity will be paramount to the deployment of new nuclear technologies. Standard Nuclear aims to become one of the primary suppliers of the TRISO nuclear fuel manufacturing segment. Kurt Terrani, current CEO of Standard Nuclear and a veteran of the U.S. National Lab and nuclear developer space, joined GENER8 to offer insights and perspectives into the challenges and opportunities facing Standard as well as what the future may hold. Kurt helped level set our conversation by explaining more exactly about what nuclear fuel is and how Standard and others manufacturing processes work  The discussion also explored into how Kurt ended up at Standard, why an independent and technology-agnostic fuel manufacturer can play an important role in the future of the nuclear industry, as well as the role of increased interest by the federal government. Kurt also gave us a picture of what the next few years of activities could look like for Standard, and how the broader nuclear space will sink or swim based on the successes, failures, and progress made today.