Deep Fission CEO Liz Muller on New, Underground Nuclear Reactors

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2:11One company seeking to meet that need is Deep Fission. It's an advanced nuclear energy company developing small, modular, pressurized water reactors installed one mile underground. We're going to learn what all of this means. The company began trading on the Nasdaq priced at$16 per share under the ticker FISN. Pleased to say we're now joined by Liz Muller, co-founder and CEO of DeepFision. She joins us from our San Francisco bureau. We're also joined by Will Wade, Bloomberg News energy reporter, here with us back in New York. But Liz, let's start with you. Just give us the elevator pitch for DeepFision.

2:45What is the company and why did you guys go public now? Yeah, deep fission, as you noted, is a different deployment model using currently available advanced reactor technology. So pressurized water reactors are the most common type of nuclear reactor we have today. But when you deploy it in a borehole a mile underground, you can deploy it much faster. You don't have all the construction that you would have for a conventional above ground nuclear reactor. And so you can build it faster and at a significantly lower cost. So for viewers just hearing about this, what problem does putting reactors a mile underground actually solve in nuclear deployment today?

3:25Yeah, it's really two issues. The first one is nuclear has historically been too expensive. There's just too much construction, too many parts that need to get built. When you build it underground, you're able to take advantage of the rock that already exists. you're able to take advantage of a column of water above you in the borehole that is creating pressure through the force of gravity. And so you don't need big, expensive pressurizers. And so the result is we're much lower cost and we're much faster in order to build. So Liz, what I kind of like about your company is that it's taking existing technologies that we already have.

4:02We know how to dig holes. We know how to build reactors. And it puts them together in a way that nobody's done before. You haven't done it before either, of course. It's still new. We're waiting to see it happen. But can you talk a little bit more about how that can save money? Yeah, so you're exactly right. This is using proven technology that already exists. So pressurized water reactor technology and standard commercially available fuel. But combining that with deep borehole drilling, which is also something that is commercially available and we know how to do. And when you combine those two, that's where you get something really special and a different deployment model.

4:41Nuclear is already very safe above ground, but when you put it in a reactor a mile below ground, the safety profile is extraordinary. And that means that you can take out a lot of the cost as well as a lot of the time to build. It's an interesting idea. What sort of reaction have you had since you came up with this idea? Because I feel like it can go two ways. You can get people saying, oh my God, that's crazy. I've never heard of anything like this. Or you can get people saying, oh my God, I've never heard of anything like this. What a brilliant idea. Yeah, I think we get both. So I think it does start off with a little bit of disbelief.

5:17Why are we the only reactor company that is taking this approach and doing something so different, which is building a mile underground? But then the more people start to understand what we're doing and that we're using existing proven technologies, the more people start to appreciate the benefits of being surrounded by billions of tons of rock so that nothing can get out of the borehole. Having that column of water that is a mile long above you in the borehole, it is creating the pressure on your reactor, but it's also your emergency core cooling system. And when you're a mile underground, there's nowhere for that water to go.

5:54And so the safety profile, I think, also grows on people as they start to appreciate the differences and the benefits of building a reactor a mile underground. So Liz, nuclear projects are known for delays and cost overruns. Why does going underground make execution easier rather than more complicated in your view? Yeah, I'll give you an example of the containment structure. So typically for above ground nuclear power, you require a containment structure to make sure that nothing gets out into the environment. And that can take years to construct. And because it's all quality maintained, there's maintenance required, you need to make sure there's no degradation.

6:34And so that can be where you can have significant cost overruns and delays in schedule. But when we're doing it, we're drilling for that equivalent containment underground. And that drilling time, you measure it in weeks, not years. And so it's really a much, much faster build time to get something like the containment dome. And then it's similar for other parts of the reactor. Liz, give us a sense of scale so far. How many reactors do you have? What regions in the country are they currently deployed in? and then plans for maybe future projects? Yeah, so we are building our first reactor right now in Parsons, Kansas.

7:16And we're able to participate in the Department of Energy Reactor Pilot Program, which is allowing us to build a reactor faster than we otherwise would have been able to do. Now, importantly, as part of this program, we are actually deploying a first commercial reactor. So it is a test reactor under the Department of Energy Program, but our intent is once we've built it, to then use it for the commercial generation of electricity. And we are targeting late 2027 or early 2028 for that first deployment and putting electricity onto the grid. 2027, 2028 for a new commercial nuclear power plant. That's just really fast.

7:58I'm amazed to hear you say that. There's so many other companies that are working and they don't have schedules anywhere near that fast. How can you do this faster than they can do it? Yeah, again, this is when we're able to leverage technology that has already been proven and that is well understood and is even commercially available. So we don't need to build a manufacturing facility or a fuel fabrication facility. We're able to go straight to building the reactor itself using dozens of commercial vendors who can build to our specifications. So that means that we can deploy within these timeframes.

8:36Again, it's proven technology, and we're just able to change the deployment model so that we can get it built faster. Can we talk a little bit about the market reaction that you've had? I know you were trying to get this IPO out the door a few weeks ago, and that was aiming for about$150 million at a$24 to$26 valuation. Today, we saw that it was actually closer to$40 million and the pricing was closer to$16 million. And today, it's even down just a little bit. So what does that say about how the world sees you? Yeah, I mean, what I think is we priced this IPO to give most possible investor confidence.

9:18And we are going to be able to reach that next milestone. Our big milestone is the commercial borehole proof of concept, which we are looking to do this fall. And that's a significant milestone because we are going to be proving out that we can build the borehole to our specifications, that we can emplace a non-nuclear reactor in that borehole, that we can get the sensors down there, and that we can start to measure the heat generation and all of these things that are new when it's in a different environment. So even though we're using the proven technology, the deployment model is something that we can prove out.

9:55And the$40 million that we're raising now is enough combined with the$60 million that we raised previously to reach this next milestone. Liz, how dependent is your story on the surging demand for AI and data centers when it comes to the future growth of your company? Yeah, we're definitely seeing demand from data centers and for AI. So we've got 15 gigawatts of LOIs for deep vision reactors. That's very strong demand. I would say that probably more than half of that is from data center developer companies. So these are the groups that are building data centers. They need electricity and they understand that deep vision has an advantage when it comes to time to market.

10:41So our ability to meet that demand and do it quickly. We're talking about 2028, 2029 time frame. is much more attractive than having to wait into the 2030s, at which point, you know, the demand is there now and the need to build is now. What kind of public response have you had to the idea? What are people saying about the idea of a nuclear power plant buried in their neighborhood? Yeah, I think initially people are a little bit surprised. This is very different from all of the other advanced reactor companies that are out there. And so the first response is, well, why are you doing it a mile underground?

11:22But the more we expand on the technology, the more we explain that this is proven technology, that we are just deploying differently. I think people start to get really excited about our ability to get this done and to get it done quickly. Liz, before we let you go, I'm curious if we could zoom out a little bit. When you think about the future of energy in the United States, let's say five, 10 years from now, what percent of the total country's energy use do you think is coming from nuclear? Well, it's about 20 percent now, and I think that's going to at least hold and potentially increase. What we're seeing right now, which is really remarkable, is that we need all the electricity that we can get.

12:04And so while a few years ago people were talking more about energy transition and there are clean energy benefits from transitioning from dirtier types of electricity to nuclear. But what we have right now is we just need to build. We need to make sure that we remain the leaders when it comes to not just AI, but also the production of energy, and nuclear can help us get there.

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