#275 Jay Yu - Nano Nuclear Technology and the Future of American Energy

34:45Like the way I've done it. And this is why I say I shouldn't be here just because I figure things out. And I had friends too, for example, this was a slick thing on resumes. They'll put like, they went to school four years, but they never graduated. But the employer thinks you graduated. So they, but they could have gone part-time for four years, right? So they'll submit their resume. And a lot of these banks at the time, I mean, maybe back then, I don't know about now, but they wouldn't even check. I think their HR departments, oh, they have four years at this college? All right. That means he has his degree.

35:25They'll let him in. And some of my friends would get jobs too on Wall Street because they put four years. No shit. Yeah. I didn't do that. I did it differently, but I got my C minus average. So they didn't graduate, but I did, you know. So yeah, I was there from up till 2009. This is when the big bank meltdown happened and the financial crisis. I mean, I think Citibank was a dollar a share. You know, everyone was losing money. It was a recession. uh so i left i i saw my bonuses and my pay pretty much vanish uh so i had to reinvent myself how did you do that so in 2009 left i saved up some money uh and essentially you know started investing into startups um and into uh yeah into startups and seeing how these startups over time were being built.

36:29And I think that's where I learned how to build a company. What kind of startups were you interested in? For example, it'll be very diversified. I didn't know what I was doing, right? So I would just put small amounts of money, like 10 grand, 20 grand into certain things. But the real experience I learned from that was, you know, when you lose, you don't lose the lesson. So, you know, many startups fail. Let's admit that. But mainly what I realize is the egos of the founders. Also, the capabilities of - The egos of the founders? Yes. What do you mean by that? When I say that is founders, when they raise a certain amount of money, their heads get big.

37:18They get their 15 minutes of fame and they think, oh, I made it. But to me, that's just the first step. You got to keep going. But many of these founders that I've invested in, they had the egos. They didn't have egos before, but once they got money, it changed them. And they became bad operators. They weren't genuine with what they actually say they're going to do. Right? So I think that is one of the issues I've seen on how many of these startups fail is the egos of the founders or the executives. They won't listen anymore. They don't care about their shareholders, what they say. They're just going to do whatever they want to do.

38:00And some of them even commit fraud. Some of them buy cars for themselves, do things. I mean, this is how it works, right? Like if your intentions aren't good from inception, it's never going to be good. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. What else do you look for in founders? I look for integrity. Their story too is important about their life, I would say. And it's not even about track record. It's more about their integrity and what they've gone through, like myself, right? And who surrounds them too, like talking to some of their other executives, if they're like buddy buddies and they don't really care how you feel in the future, you can sense these things.

38:54And this is where I guess I have a good knack for that. I have a good knack with meeting someone in the first five minutes, I could tell who they are. I mean, I could tell from their voice. You know when you meet people and you've sensed like they're fake, right? I could sense that and I lose interest really fast with people like that. But you could sense these things. You could ask certain questions and you've been part of some agencies that interrogate things. So these subtle type of things like, oh, you said that you raised 100 grand and you put 50, But now I realize you didn't put that money in.

39:43So, you know, these little clues, like you'll just talk to them over dinner or a drink and they won't connect, right? These certain little lines they say to you in the beginning won't connect the second or third time you meet them. Gotcha. So founders is integrity, egos, right? You got to stay humble, even if you raise a lot of money or do things. And I think that's why I've been successful is because I say what I'm going to do. And also I'm a genuine person. I'm probably a guy where if we do a handshake deal, I'll honor that deal. Right? Like there's very few people, I think, in this world that would do that these days.

40:27Like everyone cares about themselves. Yeah. And I care more about the longer term than the short term. Like a long play. Yes. I'm in it for the long haul. Nice. And this is where also, you know, transitioning into Nano, we could talk about that if you want. Yeah, I absolutely want to talk about that. I mean, the number one IPO of 2024. Yes. Yeah, and I'll tell you a little bit about that too. So, you know, I don't blame a lot of the people who bet against Nano because if you look at it from their perspective, you have this big Asian guy from New York City, public school kid. never took a company public like from inception and out of nowhere he's building nuclear reactors impossible so you know what happened is a ton of hedge funds bet against us uh and they said no way this is happening and but they don't understand my history they don't understand i came from nothing so i have nothing to lose right like i have something to prove i have a legacy to build.

41:38My CEO who I recruited, he went to the top boarding school in the UK. He was poor. How did he get there? He wrote his own essay to get in. His IQ was off the charts. He's a nuclear physicist, engineer, worked in nuclear subs, minister of defense, worked at Rolls Royce. So he has everything, but they bet against us because they're like, this is not possible these guys are going to do this but they don't understand that we work till 4 a.m in the morning while they're they're all asleep i would say we're we're grinding we're we're we're cut from the same cloth we're gonna battle we're warriors right um and they underestimated nano and i think what happened is they bet against us and you know our stock ran and i i think uh we We were up like six, seven hundred percent.

42:36We were the number one IPO performer in America. And we shocked the world. And not only that, like all these institutional guys, money, banks, they started looking at us different. They're like, wait, the people joining them and the things they're doing, there's something here because why would these former U.S. national leaders be joining Jay and James, right? Right. And how's this possible? Like, how are these generals joining the, um, these guys? Like, who are they? It's, it's because when I meet them, I could do a handshake and I honor my word and I've delivered. So that, that is kind of what I'm built about.

43:22And, and even my CEO, when I recruited him, he was, he told me I was crazy. Uh, he said, you know, I changed countries and industries, and you're bringing me back into nuclear? He's like, there's no money in nuclear. And I said, no, I think there's a certain area in nuclear microreactors, which is categorized as 20 megawatts or less. There's no commercial microreactor in the world. So if we're able to jump in, we could make some noise there. And what I realized about nuclear physicists and engineers is they're almost like doctors where if there's a dying person in front of them, they're going to help them.

44:08But their curiosity of building something is what drives them. So he naturally said, okay, I'll take this leap of faith with you. And ever since then, he's like, thank you. You know, like you changed my life. And you were right. I didn't see something that you saw. But what I saw at the time is I saw solar and wind, especially many stocks, they were tapering off. They were already really high. Government subsidies have boosted them. And all these countries that were talking about net zero goals by 2035, 2040, how are you going to get there without nuclear? That was my thesis. I was like, I don't get how all these countries are going to reach these net zero goals and decarbonize their countries without nuclear.

45:07And then this is where kind of the aha moment went when I brought in my number two. We said, this is where we're going to focus on. And then I could tell you what happened next.

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47:55Real quick, before we go into what happened next, I mean, so you must have made a substantial amount of money through your, were you with a VC firm or were you private? No, I was just by myself. Yeah, I mean, I was able to, what I was really good at is picking trends. in the future. So one trend I was very heavily involved with was cannabis, the rise of cannabis, right? In New York City, every corner has like a cannabis store now, but back then everything's illegal. So what happened here was in Canada, there was a tremendous amount of companies that were going public up in Canada. And I invested in many of those companies that were, you know, pre-IPO or private companies.

48:47So I had that knack, I would say, of predicting that as well. And then in the meantime, I was investing into other companies, biotechs, but once again, many of them failed. But the ones that I picked, like the sector-focused ones, many of them would succeed. Not all of them, but many of them would succeed. And then, for example gold when gold was 900 an ounce i i actually liked the price of gold at that time now we reached over 4 000 an ounce but i remember i was in um london and i was with a hedge fund buddy of mine and we were in the um richest area of london which is called mayfair and i was like i really like it but i'm tired of writing a check to these companies and not knowing and then that the executives can't execute and operate so i was able to convince him to to to put a structure a deal together um he was able to find an asset up in canada we we raised company uh raised money and took it public.

50:00And it was called Mayfair Gold. So I think right now it's still worth, you know, 300-something million. We've raised over 100-something million. Oh, shit. And, you know, there's been a tremendous amount of interest now in that. You know, so I've always had a knack for picking, I would say, sectors. But when I turned 40 and this whole nuclear thing, like I had this feeling about nuclear, I said, you know what, I'm tired of writing checks to people. I'm going to invest in myself. And when I used to go with some of these company executives to, they call it non-deal roadshows or deal roadshows, meaning they're raising capital or they're marketing their company, I was never impressed by these guys.

50:53I would go and they'll raise all this money. And I'm like, that's it? Like, this is what I'm up against? And I said, I'm going to build, I think I could build the company better than these guys. And, you know, my thesis was right, but it takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of human capital connection. Like for instance, let's go back to nano. You know, I looked up which universities in the world are top in nuclear engineering. And I flew to UC Berkeley and I met with the chair of the department at his favorite cafe on campus. And I said, you know, I want to build a microreactor. And I'll pay you for it.

51:50But you just have to believe in me and join me. And I was able to sell him on this idea. And because he's so, like I said, nuclear engineers are so inquisitive, they're like, okay, we'll see. We'll see what you could do. right? So I was able to bring the chair of that department on. Then I said, okay, with my capital markets background, I said, you know, you see a lot of these biotech companies, they have one drug. And if they don't make it to the FDA approval, it tanks the whole company. So I wanted to diversify or hedge myself. So I went to Cambridge in the UK, and I met the chair of that department.

52:33And I said, hey, I want to build a microreactor. I want to hire you. Two different designs, which will be hedged in case something happens, one or the other doesn't succeed, right? So we put world-class technical teams together. And then I was able to raise the seed capital from the former C-level executives of UPS, the largest transportation company in the world. and I said, look, we want to make nuclear scalable, transportable. And they said, we know transport, but they knew nothing about nuclear. So what they did is they went to Morgan Stanley and they talked to their energy desks and they said to Morgan, tell us everything about nuclear, small nuclear.

53:24What do you like about it? And they basically helped us. They said, you know we're bullish on nuclear we see great things for it coming um and small nuclear is is rising there's there's a lot of buzz about it so i was able to now get my seat money to pay these these world-class technical guys to to start designing and structuring and developing um the micro reactor designs right uh so that's how i was able to get these world-class people but once again it took a lot of my I would say human capital convincing and I think these days what I did people are copying now too so I see a lot of now new nanos popping up all over the place like every single week there's like a new nano right so were you the first one in the space we were the first one to be publicly listed okay so micro reactors have been around for decades um but we're looking to commercialize it right like remember there's no commercialized microreactor in the world so that was a new frontier and so we were the first publicly uh company to be listed um as a vertically integrated microreactor okay okay what i mean what so we we kind of you know you talked about net zero and and and renewables and green energy and all that kind of stuff.

54:58But what got your interest specifically in micro-reactors? Yeah, so number one for the business side was there was no commercial micro-reactor. Number two was there's a lot of historic data around different types of micro-reactors. And then three, my CEO had a lot of connections also with his previous like nuclear kind of networks about that. So we decided to focus on that because the use cases are way different than civil nuclear reactors, right? If you're able to transport and scale nuclear, think about island communities, right? Northern communities in Canada that run on diesel, right? So essentially replacing diesel generators, right, with consistent base load energy.

55:57Think of natural disaster reliefs, being able to bring it in. Think about military deployment, right? If you think about what's happening these days, especially in Russia and the Ukraine, it's a new frontier. here, you have drones fighting and how are drones powered, right? So energy is the X factor these days, right? And then you see Russia right now hitting all the energy systems in Ukraine, right? If you're able to bring a transportable microreactor, right, you have energy in different locations. So this helps democratize energy across the world, but also it helps lift humanity. So if you think about Africa, Africa was a use case for us.

56:49The whole continent has no national grid, right? So you have a lot of these remote communities, right? But if you think about uplifting humanity there, there's certain areas that have no hospitals. You know, you could bring in a microreactor and now you have desalination you you could build hospitals you could there's so much you could do right water right so all of this is an x factor and this was the thesis too besides the net zero goals of all these countries is lifting up humanity um being able to bring energy to the front lines of different situations. Like right now, the Army has a massive program.

57:36They're launching a whole microreactor program and funding that, right? So the world is changing. Military is changing. Nano this year also won a direct-to-phase-two award with the closest joint military base in DC, right? And they want to be able to have energy off grid. So in case something happens. So they're looking at our, we call it Kronos MMR, which is micromodular reactor. And we're doing a feasibility study there now, which we won that award. And we're looking at certain areas on the base where we could install that for them, right? And And, you know, they're very excited about this. We're very excited about this.

58:26But that is going to be a use case for us for the military aspect as well. Wow. I mean, did the AI race or any of that kind of stuff put an impact into your decision as well? Yes. I mean, we didn't know this was all going to transpire like this with AI data centers and all the big tech companies pouring in. You didn't know this back then? I mean. So this is, holy shit. Yeah, this was just a perfect storm. This is a rare situation where, you know, you have government backing everything. You have the giant tech companies pouring in because of AI and data centers. And then you have now also a new generation of technology that's come on that's walk away safe, that can never explode.

59:23So it's just this marriage of this opportunity and time, right? It's just a rare situation. And once again, this is where the matrix happens. And I believe there's a higher power pushing that too. And what I mean by that is there's certain things that it's almost like no coincidence that happens while I was building Nano. For instance, my last name is Yu. And, you know, I built Nano in my last office on the 38th floor. If you put that together, Yu-3-8, or as commonly known as Yu-3-0-8, which is uranium. Okay. Wow. which is the fuel for these reactors. Right? And then when we go public, our stock, we did an IPO at$4 a share.

1:00:22Our stock goes from$4 to$38. So this 38 number has been following me. And then, if you know Chinese culture, we like eights. Right? Eights, eights. Right? And so 38 has been following me. And then Nano was able to acquire out of bankruptcy a leading microreactor technology that went bankrupt. It didn't go bankrupt because of the technology. It went bankrupt because the biggest funder passed away. And he was a former CIA guy. His name was Richard Helms, I believe. And I don't know where he got the money, but he funded that company like 130-something million dollars. And he passed away, and his family, I believe they didn't care about nuclear.

1:01:15So it was an opportunity for us now. We came in, bought that technology, and it leapfrogged Nano now to becoming one of the leaders, if not the leader in microreactor technology in the world. And it came with, guess what? 38 issued and pending patents. Are you serious? This is what I'm saying. There's just been so many crazy things that happened that it's unbelievable. And now, so when people attack us early on and we were the number one IPO performer, I just put my head down and work because I know it's going to work out itself for some reason. Like, it's so crazy. There's just been so many things that it's just unbelievable.

1:02:08Let me add, that movie Oppenheimer, you know, it came out. I think it won a ton of awards. I don't know if you watched this, but this is another goosebump moment for me. I was watching it and Oppenheimer, you know, he helped build the first atomic bomb, right? Where did he recruit his scientists from? UC Berkeley and Cambridge. It gave me goosebumps. I was like, get the fuck out of here. Like Oppenheimer did this. I didn't even know. I knew nothing about, I don't even read about Oppenheimer. Like I just did things to myself. Right. So, so these are the little things that are like so freaky. I'm just like, it's almost unbelievable.

1:02:56And then what's unbelievable is, you know, within a year and a half, we raised since inception over$600 million. I mean, we go from an unnamed group of guys and company like they're not real. They're not doing this to now being one of the leaders and now having the money to make this happen. It's not about if we're building it. It's about when now. Right. So we shocked the world and many of these nuclear guys are now looking at us different because they're like, wow, Nano's a real player now. And not only that, like once again, we recruited world-class technical teams, but also former US national leaders.

1:03:44Like our chair of our advisory board is Rick Perry, right? Former secretary of energy under the last Trump administration. And then I hired the former CFO of the Department of Energy. And then I brought in a four-star general, Wesley Clark, former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO forces, right? And then I brought in General Terry Rubling. He was head of the Marines in the Asian Pacific. And apparently he is the real life Top Gun, not Tom Cruise. OK, so, you know. We brought so many high level people to to the table and everyone's just like in awe and they're shocked because we came in and I felt confident guiding the company post IPO because we have that grit.

1:04:38We just have that warrior spirit. And I think it's from the history and the upbringing I had. I mean, it's just an all-in type of mentality, right? I grew up with nothing. Like, what are you doing against this? It means nothing to me. I'm just going to put my head down and build, right? Damn. That is fucking impressive, man. Congratulations. Thank you. Wow. Wow. Are you guys talking about sending some of these mini reactors up to space too? Oh, yeah. I mean, that's part of the whole type of new frontier, right? I think with SpaceX and with all these rocket companies going into space and raising tons of billions of dollars as well, one of the issues is energy.

1:05:34right like if you're able to bring a scalable nuclear reactor and a transportable one to let's say the moon right and that's one of the mandates too um i think under this administration they announced recently they want to put a reactor on the moon they want to be the first country to do that i mean you're you're going against russia and china right so um they're trying to they announced they want to focus on that and our reactor design is perfectly for that We have a design, we call it Loki, that could go up there and be on the moon. How many different reactors do you have? So we have a portfolio of reactors.

1:06:17I call it, I would say, large, medium, and small, but the large still being small, okay? So our large one is called Kronos. It's a 15 megawatt electric output and 45 megawatt thermal. And then we have Loki. What does that mean? That means it could power 15 megawatt electric. I would say it could power maybe 15 ,000 homes. Okay. Right? Sure. And then Loki is between one to five megawatts. And then we have our Zeus reactor, which was developed by the University of Illinois' professors that I recruited. And that design is, to me, it's probably the most simplest design in the world. And that is going to be under one megawatt.

1:07:12So that is used for the military is really interested in that because that could be deployed in the front line to power the drones, to move the camps, the military bases, right? So, yeah, we have a portfolio. And they're all, I would say, called high gas temperature reactors. And so we keep the same type of designs and we kind of flow it down. And what that means is we also use that trisophil. So Trisophil, actually the government's poured billions of dollars into R &D into it. So many of these companies now that are developing microreactors or SMRs or small modular reactors, they're all using that type of same combination, like high gas temperature reactor with Trisophil, because it makes the most sense.

1:08:05And it seems like many of these other larger companies are also doing that as well. And remember, TRISO, it's coated with pretty much tank armor. It can never explode. It just passively cools, right? If anything happens, there's like an auto shutdown. You shoot a rocket at it, the fuel doesn't explode. Again, it could crack, but they never chemically kind of interact with each other. And that's why we call it walk away safe. Um, so we, when we acquired, uh, the technology from bankruptcy, it came with two demonstration sites. One partnered with the university of Illinois. We reestablished that.

1:08:51And recently we also broke ground there. We had a ceremony with the university and, um, they're very happy that, you know, we're bringing this project back to life. So we broke ground and we're planning to submit a construction application with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in Q1 of 2026. Wow. Yeah, so what that means is hopefully within a year, a year and a half, we'll be able to pour concrete and steel and start building the reactor. And the reactor is buried on campus. And like I said, right across the street from the reactor is dorm rooms. So this is why we call it walkaways. And you'd think that university would allow that situation to happen if they didn't know from their experts that this is actually safe.

1:09:41Yeah. Right? So this is a whole new world, a whole new nuclear technology. And people have to kind of, you know, rewire their minds about nuclear now. I mean, what do you think that unleashing nuclear, what's going to happen? Are we going to hit a golden age? Because everybody I've talked, you're not the only nuclear guy I've talked to. Of course. Everybody's gung-ho about it. Yeah. And, you know, and everybody's super gung-ho about it. It seems like this administration's getting rid of a lot of the red tape that has been holding progress in this sector back for a long fucking time. Yes. You know, so what, I mean, I guess, first question, I mean, are you obviously, obviously you wouldn't be in it if you didn't think the red tape was disappearing.

1:10:33So what, I mean, what does this unleash? What is going to change in everyday Americans' lives? I think you have to look at the whole kind of supply chain of things, right? You have now AI and data centers being built. That's going to take years. You know, it's not going to be built overnight. And these are massive infrastructures, right? Like Amazon's pouring tens of billions of dollars into this. Meta, Google, Oracle, like a lot of these players are looking at nuclear as an option. And NVIDIA with Jensen Huang, he recently said also that a lot of these small reactors are going to come online with these data centers, right?

1:11:27So let's look at that whole kind of cycle. You have energy is the X factor, right? It is the bottleneck right now. So with these small reactors, you're able to now create all this data centers and AI or be a part of the situation, right? But you're able to do that. How is it going to impact? How's AI? We hearing it every day. How's AI going to impact our lives? So you need the energy to create the AI, right? In order to deliver it and change our lives. So you have this kind of whole cycle here. But once again, the X factor is energy. So if you're able to create a scalable factory fabricated situation where you can mass produce nuclear, you have that baseload energy.

1:12:21It's carbon free. And then you can deploy it off grid. Right. So you don't have that burden on the grid anymore. Right. You could you want to build a data center, bring it anywhere. I recently came back from speaking at the largest energy conference in the UAE, in Abu Dhabi. I was approached by a company wanting to build data centers in the desert. How are you going to do that? Only way to do that is with nuclear, right? So that is how crazy things are moving. And the world is catching on to this, right? You have now the Middle East very interested in this because they know oil is finite, right?

1:13:10If they want to, let's say they want their hands around energy in the future, you're going to have to invest in nuclear. So there is a lot of interest from the Middle East right now with small reactors. The UAE just built, I believe, five of them. So nuclear reactors, right? So they're all coming online too, and they're all kind of changing their mindset. Like we can't just focus on oil anymore. Wow. The Middle East is, wow. Yeah. I mean, what about, I mean, so I know, you know, an abundance of energy will jet launch artificial intelligence, but what about production costs, transportation costs?

1:13:56You know, we were talking about, you know, space, all that kind of shit. I mean, what is a numbers guy, Wall Street guy, you know, I mean, you would have a lot more insight than I would have. But I would, I mean, if un-nuclear is truly unleashed and we have an overabundance of energy, I mean, that would, it is my understanding, that would throw us into some type of a golden age. Yeah. Great, great point there. I think this is why micro reactors are very important because let's say with our Kronos MMR, every piece of it is modularized. So we could produce this in a factory, right? And it adheres to road weight limits, right?

1:14:44Every piece of it. And the biggest part is vessels in nuclear reactors. is that's the largest piece we could we're able to design this and mass produce this in a factory kind of like the gigawatt factory with tesla right like that is the mindset you need in order to get that golden age of nuclear because some of these other small reactors are still really big right um where where you can't just mass produce every single piece gotcha um but with a micro reactor, you're able to do that and you're able to transport it. And with our Kronos, it's buried. So the surface of it will be a certain finite amount.

1:15:31And then on the bottom, we're able to connect the reactors. Almost like Lego blocks, right? Wow. Boom, boom, 15 megawatts. So we can actually scale to one gigawatt if we wanted to. And right now, there's a tremendous amount of interest from AI data centers and large infrastructure companies to partner with us to co-locate some of that with our design. Right. And also, the resilient part of it is if one reactor dies and you have multiple, those keep going. So you never lose energy. Wow. Right. So this is blowing people's minds because now, and this is also great for the military as well, right?

1:16:19If you get hit by a missile or something and it takes out one of our reactors, but you have multiple, the other ones are running still. So you're never going to lose energy, right? So, and this is what you need with a lot of these data centers because you can't have any downtime like that, right? So a lot of them are looking to co-locate. And this is why, you know, you have the big tech companies investing now. I'm partnering with a lot of these companies, right? Interesting. Yeah. Interesting. Well, Jay, let's take a quick break. Sure. Yeah. No problem. We'll pick up right where we left off. Most doctor visits end with, you're fine.

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1:20:15All right, Jay, we're back from the break. I want to get into what you're doing now with LISTS Technologies. So it looks like you're doing some type of laser enrichment with uranium, which I know nothing about. So what sparked this one? Yeah, so I think why I'm almost drooling at this is because, you know, once again, I kind of saw this, you know, in the past. But, okay, everyone right now is building these glorious reactors. So to me, everyone has a Ferrari, but they have no gas for the Ferrari. And this is where LIS kind of comes in here. LIS actually stands for laser isotope separation technologies.

1:21:03That's why we named it LIS Technologies. And in the very beginning, I wanted this technology in nano, but because it poses a proliferation and national security risk, we have to separate the companies. but in reality we just wanted the company in nano every management figure in in list has to get a queue clearance for example and the reasoning for this is when you're we're dealing with enrichment and what is enrichment okay so i'll take you through kind of the cycle of the fuel so you take uranium ore or yellow cake, which you mine, and you have to convert it into UF6, which is the gas. And then this is where enrichment comes in.

1:21:55The world currently uses centrifuges. And this is why Putin, he controls about, I believe, 40 % of the world's enrichment. So that means he has a ton of centrifuges the us you know because the the nuclear infrastructure here essentially has been atrophied and we were the the largest exporter of nuclear services and fields back then we're the now the biggest importer right because the us didn't invest into this in so many decades so now with With the nuclear renaissance happening, you have to build back the actual infrastructure to support these reactors, right? And we don't have that yet. We're building there, but we don't have that yet.

1:22:42So when I was looking at building nano, I said, okay, one of the issues is going to be fuel and the enrichment side. So centrifuges is the second generation of enrichment. The first generation is gas diffusion. um the second is centrifuges and the third or the holy grail i call it is laser uranium enrichment okay and what that means is you're able to take a laser and excite to the isotope level to for enrichment right so for us let's break this down civil nuclear reactors you use five percent fuel up to five percent enrichment of the fuel of it okay small nano reactors go up to 10 percent and smrs also with other microactors go up to 20 and that's called halo h-a-l-e-u high assay low enriched uranium that's up to 20 percent leu is up to five percent low enriched uranium And then when you go beyond that, it's weapons grade and is then considered HEU or high enriched uranium, which is used for guess what?

1:23:58Submarines, aircraft carriers, and nuclear bombs, right? Interesting. So this is why we have to move list out. It's because it poses a national security risk because technically we could keep going to that 99%. We're not looking to do that. We're looking for only civil use of this, meaning the LEU and the HALU percent up to 20%. So essentially in a single stage of the laser process, we could enrich to 5%. In two stages, up to 10 % of HALU. And then we could keep going, right? So what happened recently is Israel and the U.S. bombed Iran, remember? What were they doing? Enriching. Because the US and Israel's scared they're going to reach past the 20 % and they're going to keep going.

1:24:52Right. So this is the same type of security profile List is going to have. You know, what I did with List is early on, I engaged all the regulatory bodies in the US and said, look, it's me, J.U. from Nano. I'm not some other guy who didn't grow up in New York City. It's just me. I want to build this company. and I'm willing to hand you the keys to the laser room or whatever we're doing. We just want to build the technology. And I truly believe we'll be able to do this in a way where we could scale it commercially, because that's been kind of the issue in the world is it could work in a lab, but the scalability of these lasers and for this enrichment, no one's really done before.

1:25:40so um the history of lists is also kind of crazy it could be made into a movie so lists the origin of this is dr jeff urkins he's 94 years old now he actually drives a car still and i told him don't drive just take an uber but he doesn't even know how to use it get uber you know so he's 94 and he has some freaky genetics and and dna but his story dates back to world war ii he's dutch but he was put in a to a concentration camp in indonesia and between 10 to 12 years old he had to serve hard labor like he thought he was gonna die what happened next is the bomb dropped and it ended the war. And what it did to that little kid is he dedicated himself to learning everything about the atom.

1:26:36So then guess where he went? UC Berkeley to get his PhD. So it's almost like full circle again, UC Berkeley. And now think of back to the future. You know, the mad scientist in his garage building the car, right? That's what Jeff Erkins did. He built a whole test loop of the laser in his garage. And the craziest thing is the U.S. government didn't stop him. So he was technically enriching small amounts of this in his garage. And there will be other nuclear experts that I've encountered that went to his garage and said, I couldn't believe the government's allowing him to do this. But also the damn thing worked.

1:27:25So what happened next is there was a big company up in Canada. It's called Chemical. They're publicly listed as well. I think they're like 30,$40 billion company. They actually funded his technology up in Canada. And this was the late 80s and early 90s. And then what happened next is for them to fund the next phase of this was going to cost a lot of money. And then Russia, the iron current fell. They had to support their economy by selling cheap and rich uranium to the world. So they decided not to continue with advancing his laser technology. So he took his lasers, all his paperwork, and put it in storage in UC Irvine, California.

1:28:16We took it out of storage. And this was created. It is the only US origin in pen to technology. So this is a made in America technology. And to me, it's a critical technology. It's the critical technology because once again, it could provide the enrichment technology for the whole fuel cycle, which is needed drastically here in the US. So that's one of the bottlenecks, which is the fuel side so this is why lists with nano is vertically integrated and this separates us from all the other um reactor companies and so having our own fuel at a cheaper cost than anyone else separates us yeah right um but also it can potentially like i said help you know help create fuel for aircraft carriers, submarines.

1:29:20We're not looking to do that, but if the government one day wants to buy us out or invest into that, or we make an exception, then that could happen. Right? So if you're able to now make it cheaper, the enrichment than any other centrifuge technology in the world, or make it essentially obsolete, then Russia is going to have a problem with the U.S. China is building more reactors right now than the whole world put together. Are you serious? So this is why national security, energy is national security. China is building more reactors than the whole world put together. And this is why the U.S. and I believe the Trump administration is, huh?

1:30:09How long have they been doing that? I would say this happened probably the last decade. I would say the last, they've been turning the corner because of the rise in technology and the digital side in China. They're now focused on energy. They see that as a bottle. And remember, the other issue recently was the critical minerals, right? I believe the administration got really mad because China was restricting some of the exports of the critical minerals to the U.S. So now the U.S. is investing directly into these companies, right? Because those critical minerals are used for armor, for military use.

1:30:55So once again, it poses a national security risk if we don't have critical minerals and critical technologies like this to actually advance.

1:31:07Do you have any idea how far behind we are from? Um, well, from China? I mean, this is why there's a big push for small reactors and companies like Nano to help mass produce this in the future, right? Um, they are, the current administration's also bringing back online a lot of these older reactors and kind of modernizing them as well. They're pouring billions of dollars into larger projects as well. So how much is still not going to be enough. So we need to continue to pour more funding and also remove the bureaucracy. And that's another area where the executive orders recently helped push that.

1:31:56It reduces timelines of the regulatory aspects. So we are moving in the right direction. There's a tremendous amount of momentum, but China's unleashing their energy through nuclear, and we need a follow. Shit. Are you hopeful? You got to be hopeful. Yeah, I'm very hopeful. I mean, this is why, you know, with LIS and Nano, we're very much a part of the build back of the U.S. infrastructure and nuclear and the capabilities of the new technologies in the future. So this is why we're working with military here in the U.S., because we see this as an issue in the future, right? Having energy security sovereignty is a big issue in the U.S., and we need to be a part of that.

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1:36:17Also lists. Our whole executive management team is from ASML. ASML also creates these lasers, but therefore semiconductor chips. There will be no AI in the world without ASML. And my whole laser executive team is from ASML. So if they can't do this, no one can. Okay. They're the most brilliant laser scientists I know. We created what I call that laser tiger team of the best of the best in the US. And we're so pumped up. We really feel like we're going to make this happen. And if you're able to create fuel cheaper, faster, and more energy efficient than Russia or any other country in the world, they're going to be looking at us.

1:37:11We're going to have the edge in the US now. right so this is why it's so important to actually back list technologies because it could be the x factor in the future where do we get all of our enriched uranium from right now uh a lot of that does it come from russia yes we were buying you know billions of dollars a year and then you know they they now have you know certain acts banning that but with exceptions You could still technically get it if you need it. Right. I think that's some of the, but eventually they want to never use Russia. Right. But I think you still need that access, but this is why the U S recently, you know, created a deal with the UK, right.

1:38:03To they call it, I think the golden ages deal or something where, you know, they're looking to now focus on other countries where we could build that fuel capability or to get that fuel from as well, not just Russia. But Russia, once again, controls about 40 % of the world's average market. I'm sorry, did you just say we're looking at other countries to produce some breached uranium for us? Well, we're looking to get, yeah, get some of that to offset that, to offset Russia, right? To focus on how we cannot depend on Russia for that. Why would we do that when we have LIS being built right? Why would we even waste our time fucking around with other countries?

1:38:45Exactly. And this is why with LIS, next year's a pivotal moment for us, because we're going to showcase the same results that Dr. Jeff Erkins produced earlier. And we're going to show in this single stage, we could enrich the LEU, two stages, HALU. Once we do that, it's going to send shockwaves across the world in the US. And then once we commercialize it, it's going to be a big plus as well. Because commercializing it is saying now we've built a business. We got approval from the regulatory commission. That will take also the same amount of time when all these reactors are built, all these small reactors, which is, I would say, early 2030s, in or around then.

1:39:31So the timing of this is in the next five to four years, this is all going to come to life. That's what we hope to happen. But we're all in on this. I think with LIS, I could become a billionaire. That is something that we definitely need in the future. And the US should definitely get behind. Um, and we'll be making a lot of noise, I would say with lists next year, because a lot of the things we're doing now are going to mature next year and people are going to see hopefully the government backing us and, and state level, federal level. But, you know, we, we were also, um, selected as one of the six, uh, companies, domestic companies for the LEU acquisition program.

1:40:24So creating fuel for the future, that's a$3.4 billion over a decade award that only the six companies could bid for. So we already got some recognition. Also, the Air Force Innovation Unit also selected us to do some feasibility studies around that as well. So, yeah, it's happening. It's happening. but in the next, I would say, year or two, we're really going to see a big difference. And we're going to reestablish that baseline with LIS and with Dr. Jeff Erkins. And the funniest thing I want to announce also is like each, I would say, enrichment project has a name. So I'm going to go back to Lord of the Rings now.

1:41:17We're going to name our project The Return of the King. Right. Right on. Yeah. So we're going to bring him back. And this is, once again, a US origin technology. So this is like, we could pound our chest and say, this is made in America, right? Man, that's cool. Yeah. That is cool. Dr. Jeff Erkins, I mean, that sounds like that would be a good interview. Yes. Oh, he talks a little slow, but you'll love him. Yeah. I'd love to meet him. Yeah, you should. He'll talk. Sounds like he'll be around. He wrote his own book, too. It's called the nuclear imperative. You could actually buy it from Amazon.

1:41:55Right on. Yeah. I want to write that down. Yeah. The nuclear imperative. Yeah. He wrote this a long time ago. So now everything is full circle for him. And, and he, I, we want to just create his legacy and, and, and, and, you know, even his paperwork, his cat drawings, they're so old that, you know, when, when paper turns Brown. We have thousands of pages. I want to create a museum, you know, one day for him and to showcase that his life's work has now changed the world and made also the U.S. stronger than any other nation in the world. I mean, that's incredible. That is. Yeah. That is something.

1:42:37Yeah. Anything else to discuss when it comes to lists? Uh, no, we're just excited about what's going to come. And, um, you know, there's tons of interests in lists as well, like from investors. You, uh, I think recently, um, Kathy Woods, you know, the famous investor arc invests, they wrote an article about us enrichment and that us enrichment needs to be built back faster. If not, AI is not going to, you know, be at the full capacity because you don't have the field to power the reactors. And they listed five companies and I believe, and LIS was selected as one of the benefactors, right? So large investors are even looking at us already, right?

1:43:28Because they see the potential here. They see that this is going to be the next generation of technology that changes the world. Yeah. I'm excited for you. Thank you. I'm real excited for you. What else do you got going on? Um, no, those are my two, I would say babies and I'm all in on that. Uh, well, you got your philanthropy. Yes. Yes. Um, it's like that's pretty important to you. Yeah, it's very important. So, you know, growing up in New York city too, as a poor kid, uh, I turned to sports. I played a lot of basketball, um, football, like not the real football where you're tackling everyone, but like flag football or, um, and, and, you know, I was lucky cause I joined organizations that supported me that kind of fostered me and took me to tournaments and paid for my uniforms.

1:44:26And I just want to give that back kind of like pay it forward. So, um, you know, I, I want to, you know, invest into kids and, and through sports and education, right? Like teaching them about the real world, but at the same time, duplicate what was given to me when I was younger, which is, you know, paying for tournaments, uniforms. So we have volleyball and basketball for inner city kids right now. And, you know, we hire coaches, we run clinics, and we throw certain events too to educate people as well. We donate. So yeah, that's very important to me just paying it forward um being blessed and humble about things and i think that is necessary to add to kind of to the matrix to add to to the kind of higher power above right like you you give back you will receive so um and this is what i live by and this is why i think people like doing business with me because i'm a genuine person i don't look for the easy way out I'm long-term, and this is why I want to create a legacy here, right?

1:45:38Like, I'm long-term in nano, long-term in this, and I think this is going to help change humanity, help change the world, and give necessary energy to humanity across every aspect. It's impressive, man. It's impressive. Thank you. Last question. Yes. If you could recommend three people to come on this show, who would they be? Definitely Dr. Jeff Erkins. Like, a movie could be created out of his life. I would also recommend another, my CEO actually of Nano would be great. He has a very unique story as well. And then I would pick one friend of mine who also kind of led the same journey as me, but native New Yorker, nothing was given to him.

1:46:38And he would be able to come on and kind of, when I say duplicate what I've done, but he could give you a different perspective and a different topic and category. So I don't want to say his name because then he'll get gassed up right now. He'll be like, oh, my God, I could go on this show. So those are the three I would definitely want to come on the show. Right on. Yeah. Well, thank you. Yes. Well, Jay, love what you're doing, man. Thank you. Thank you for coming to Tennessee and doing this interview. And I hope to see you again. And I wish you the best of luck. Thank you so much for having me.

1:47:15My pleasure. Cheers.

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