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Uncapped with Jack AltmanWhy the US Needs Nuclear Energy | Jordan Bramble, CEO of Antares | Ep. 11
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At a glance
WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT
Nuclear’s slowdown, resurgence, and microreactors for defense and space
- The conversation traces U.S. nuclear history from early wartime reactors and the nuclear navy to commercial grid buildout—then highlights the sharp post-1970s slowdown (roughly 100 reactors built early, only a few since).
- Bramble argues nuclear’s stagnation was “overdetermined”: safety incidents and regulatory restructuring mattered, but so did 1970s-era macro/financial shifts and the drop in large government R&D programs that previously catalyzed demand and workforce capacity.
- He outlines today’s renewed drivers: decarbonization (net-zero needs fission), rising electricity needs (AI/data centers and broader growth), national security energy resilience, and accelerating space militarization requiring high power in orbit.
- Antares focuses on kilowatt-scale “microreactors” using heat-pipe cooling—factory-manufacturable, premium-power products optimized for mission-critical defense and space use cases rather than commodity electricity markets.
IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING
5 ideasU.S. nuclear growth collapsed after an early buildout.
Bramble notes the U.S. built ~100 reactors from ~1950 to the early 1970s, but only turned on about three additional grid reactors since—framing the modern “nuclear pause” as a central problem.
Nuclear’s stagnation wasn’t just politics or fear—finance and demand mattered.
He argues many narratives overemphasize regulation/public sentiment, while underweighting 1970s budget austerity, rising interest rates, and reduced federal R&D intensity (from ~12–15% of budget historically to ~3% today), which eroded the pipeline and workforce needed for repeatable builds.
Regulatory separation changed the development environment.
The Atomic Energy Commission once both built and regulated; Congress later created DOE and an independent NRC, changing incentives, timelines, and approval pathways alongside other headwinds.
Fission alone can materially address decarbonization at scale.
Bramble positions fission as available, carbon-free power now, contrasting it with fusion’s promised advantages (less waste/radiation challenges) but emphasizing fusion’s unresolved materials and timeline risks.
AI/data centers revive the ‘how do we power it?’ question—and nuclear is back on the table.
He argues renewables’ low energy density and transmission buildout limits make firm, high-density generation attractive; Big Tech interest (Meta/Amazon/Google) is real, though he claims they’re not yet spending meaningfully compared to DoD.
WORDS WORTH SAVING
5 quotesWe built something like a hundred reactors… between roughly 1950 and the early 1970s. I think we’ve built and turned on three since in the US on the grid.
— Jordan Bramble
I’ve seen a lot of people have talked about regulation… public sentiment… But I’ve seen very few people really comment on the… financial changes… in the seventies.
— Jordan Bramble
We can certainly do it with just fission… fission is carbon-free power.
— Jordan Bramble
The problem with fusion is that it’s… perpetually thirty years away.
— Jordan Bramble
You could fit it on a truck bed… an eighteen-wheeler truck bed.
— Jordan Bramble
High quality AI-generated summary created from speaker-labeled transcript.
