Radiant Energy Fund’s Mark Nelson joins 'Power Lunch' to discuss the state of nuclear energy in America now.

Mark Nelson, founder of Radiant Energy Group, discussed the current landscape of nuclear energy in the United States. While there is growing support for nuclear power from investors, utilities, technology companies, and both major political parties, the construction of new nuclear plants has not kept pace with demand. Nelson highlighted that, unlike China, which is rapidly expanding its nuclear capacity, the US has yet to assemble the necessary teams and resources to launch a new fleet of reactors.

Instead, the US is focusing on restarting or finishing existing nuclear plants, as building new facilities has proven costly and slow, as seen in recent projects. Nelson emphasized that significant coordination among technology providers, builders, financiers, and utilities is required to move forward with new projects. He also noted that some decommissioned plants, such as Indian Point in New York, have been dismantled too quickly to allow for easy reactivation, further complicating efforts to expand nuclear capacity.

Radiant Energy: Next fleet of nuclear power plants doesn't exist yet

But the bottom line is that nuclear and its stocks are having a big, big moment. Let's talk about how long that may last with Mark Nelson. He's the founder and managing director of Radiant Energy Group. He was on the nuclear story, Mark, before it was even cool again. So we're glad that you're back on the program. Listen, you're not a markets guy. We do the market stuff. Nuclear is having a moment. A lot of these stocks are soaring. What is the real state of nuclear in America right now? Well, from the public, we have a lot of love from investors. We have a lot of love. That's what you just mentioned. Utilities now realize they want more nuclear and customers of those utilities. Big tech. They just suddenly realized they want a bunch of nuclear. The Democrats now realize, like in New York, they want nuclear. So they've stopped ripping it down and they want to start building it. Republicans, they still want nuclear. So the question is, where is our nuclear fleet? China is building 10 gigawatts a year coming up. New York wants one in 10 years. If you're doing the math, that's a 100 times gap between New York and China. Now, there's a big country out here. It's not just New York, but we don't yet have an answer to China. So to answer your question, where's the next nuclear coming from? It's from whoever puts together the magic team. What's the magic team? You got to have nuclear technology that, you know, works. You got to have a team of people experienced at building who want to build big and want to build fast. You need finance industry ready to pour billions into it. It's a great deal long term. If you can find an investable power plant project, you may need utilities that have those precious nuclear plant sites where the locals already want a massive expansion of nuclear. And then finally, you've got to have somebody bring it all together. That's the super team we're waiting for here in the West and here in America. And I think I think to to to continue with your team's analogy, we'll stick with sports. I think the general managers, i.e. the power companies have decided it's better to go out and trade for an existing player, i.e. restart Three Mile Island, restart that one. What is it, Dwayne Howard or whatever it's called in Iowa by power from the Talon Energy Group? If you're Amazon in Ohio, restart Palisades in Michigan than to build or draft a new player, because as we learned in Georgia, the Votal Energy plant took forever and was like three X over budget. You couldn't be more correct at the moment. The demand is such that anybody that's got a spare nuclear plant to finish or restart is getting a lot of play, a lot of inquiries. And those deals are coming together. But what we don't have is the next fleet. In my opinion, whoever puts together the most compelling team the quickest, likely by the end of this calendar year, is going to be out in front announcing more builds. There's support in Congress. There's an understanding that we've got to back our team or we're going to be just cooked on the race. I think it's going to come. But it's a lot of hard work between now and then. Mark, why can't we just restart Indian Point, the New York plant that was shut down or to Hogle's point? Is it just that these new tax incentives are so attractive that it's more economical to build a new one than to restart an old one? Look, there's a lot of places where you can restart nuclear plants pretty easily. Germany is one. But they're very slow and careful about how they dismantle. I heard stories out of Indian Point where people were ripping things apart inside that reactor immediately. They got rid of almost all the workers immediately. The intent apparently was to do such serious damage that by the time New York realized that they were so out of luck, it would be too hard to reverse. That's insane. I mean, there's some talk about maybe. Is that I mean, what was the point? Why? Why be that destructive? Well, they knew there'd be a massive power jump in cost. Like those nuclear plants were the best located power plant, arguably in America, for providing cheap power to an urban area that needed it. But that was turned around as a negative, saying it's too close to New York City. Everybody knew who knew markets for power, at least knew there'd be a huge cost jump the second you shut those down. So it meant that there'd be a huge political price to pay if somebody could try to pin that on Governor Cuomo and get that plant restarted. It's my opinion. I don't have a conspiracy theory. I've uncovered that the intent was to damage the plant so fast that it couldn't come back like Duane Arnold in Iowa or Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania.

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