Last year we wrote about Last Energy when the company closed its Series B fund, raising 40 million USD to continue the development of its small nuclear reactors, which has an output of up to 20 MW of electricity or 80 MW of thermal power. For reference, Romania's Cernavoda Power Plant has a capacity of around 706 MW per reactor, but it's a much larger installation that is also way more complex.

Compared to a traditional nuclear power plant, which requires significant groundwork and a strategic position close to large waterways for cooling, micro nuclear reactors are usually LEGO-like structures that can be assembled much faster and don't have the same cooling requirements. This means that they can be installed in more locations and can be specifically deployed at industrial sites or in the immediate vicinity of a town or city, for example.

Nuclear power, an immediate solution to the climate crisis

Last Energy was founded back in 2019 by the company's current CEO, Bret Kugelmass, who began to work on the business itself two years before that moment. At the time, in 2017, Bret established the Energy Impact Center in Washington, D.C., with the purpose to find practical solutions for the climate change situation.

After careful consideration, the research institute deemed nuclear power as the best solution to pursue, due to the great energy density, as well as ability to generate power without a direct greenhouse gas emissions output. The team then started researching on the optimal approach, but unfortunately, it was not yet a good moment to develop small nuclear reactors quickly and at a competitive cost.

So then, Bret created a new company, a spinoff from the original Energy Impact Center, in the form of Last Energy, in order to solve both of these issues. The objective was to deliver small nuclear reactors that can be built and deployed quickly and that can be operated by the end user, instead of an energy company.

The team then expanded quickly beyond US borders to gain as much expertise as possible and reached to Europe for nuclear know-how, so that currently, Last Energy has staff in countries such as the UK and Romania to research future developments for micro nuclear reactors.

The company's most recently-announced project will be deployed in the Bridgend, South Wales, UK, and will consist of four small reactors amounting to 80 MW. These will serve the local industrial sites and the first unit is expected to come online sometime in 2027, while the remaining three units will be added afterwards to scale the capacity.

"The Llynfi Clean Energy Project is only one in a schedule of near-term projects that total 80 units for various customers, half of which are data centers", Last Energy officials told Green Start-up.

Last year, the company also received pre-authorization for a nuclear energy project that will be developed in Romania, which will see the implementation of a 20 MW unit.

How small nuclear reactors can help us become energy independent

Last Energy's micro nuclear reactor, called PWR-20, is a pressurized water reactor (PWR) and it employs a technology that can be found in other 300 nuclear power plants across the world. Similar to these power plants, it uses fission to heat water, generating steam, which is then used to move a turbine, producing electricity.

There are some differences, though, as Last Energy officials told us. "Some key differences include our intentional use of air cooling — which allows us to conserve water and site the plant anywhere — and of course, the plant’s micro-scale size. The small size enables us to manufacture the plant’s modules in factories, increasing quality assurance and unlocking a faster development timeline. It also allows us to employ passive safety features that prevent the reactor from overheating without requiring human intervention."

While it's true that nuclear fusion is the more desirable form of nuclear power, as it generates almost no radioactive waste, as well as being safer, fission is currently the mature technology that regulators around the world choose to work with. This also helps the American SMR manufacturer to enter markets quicker, as well as to obtain the necessary permits for future projects.

Company experts explained that, while the PWR technology for nuclear power production was available for decades at this point, being the most economical and reliable, it required government support for the large developments. This, however, doesn't work in the advantage of companies that want to adopt nuclear power themselves, because the localized nuclear projects involving small reactors can take too long to deploy using this approach.

Business-to-business transactions can be the solution that will incentivize rapid deployment for industrial players, Last Energy believes, and the company made some strategic decisions to ensure smooth and quick collaboration with regulators from around the world. One of the biggest decisions in this direction was to use the readily-available and proven PWR technology that is internationally common.

"Effectively, Last Energy is innovating the business model behind nuclear power delivery rather than functioning as a vendor and innovating the reactor itself", company officials explained.

A flexible nuclear reactor that can be installed "anywhere"

Due to the fact that it sports air cooling, instead of water cooling for the reactor itself, the PWR-20 unit can be deployed pretty much anywhere, but currently, Last Energy's business models envisions the B2B approach, targeting mid-sized industrial manufacturers and data centers.

"So, the sorts of places where you would find our plants would be in an industrial park, next to an automotive factory, near a data center campus, or some other commercial space, rather than, for example, in a residential area."

By opting for a small nuclear reactor located nearby their facilities, industrial companies can enjoy the benefits of nuclear power, such as 24/7 power production of fossil-free energy, while shortening distribution times and complexity.

Experts at Last Energy also believe that micro nuclear reactors can be the ideal solution for powering large manufacturing sites, as well as data centers. This is especially important as AI computing continues to expand and more and more supercomputers will be implemented to accommodate the required processing power.

The energic future of Last Energy

In the coming years, Last Energy aims to further simplify regulatory requirements for new small nuclear developments, while also working on the deployment of the company's first power plant. This can contribute to even faster installation for new projects and could incentivize even more companies to adopt small nuclear reactors as their green power sources that can generate important amounts of energy.

Additionally, a series of new prototypes will be built in the near future to optimize the supply chain and scale-up the production. The American company specialized in nuclear power aims to manufacture 10.000 small nuclear reactors over the next 15 years.

Photo source: Last Energy