u/ResponsibleOpinion95

https://www.deepfission.com/investors/news-events/press-releases/detail/109/advanced-nuclear-company-deep-fission-announces-launch-of-public-offering-of-common-stock

Deep Fission announced it has launched the roadshow for a proposed underwritten public offering of 6 million shares of common stock, with an expected IPO price range of $24–$26 per share. The company also plans to grant underwriters a 30-day option to buy up to 900,000 additional shares. Deep Fission has applied to list on the Nasdaq Global Market under ticker “FISN.”

The company says proceeds will be used for general corporate purposes, including engineering, R&D, licensing, and construction of its first pilot nuclear reactor and related technologies. William Blair, Stifel, and Canaccord Genuity are acting as joint lead book-running managers.

Deep Fission’s concept is unusual: it plans to place a small modular pressurized water reactor roughly one mile underground in a deep borehole. The company calls this the Gravity Nuclear Reactor™, arguing that the underground siting model could simplify construction, improve safety, and support scalable deployment.

The company is also advancing a first reactor project in Parsons, Kansas, and says it was selected for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Reactor Pilot Program. Earlier company materials stated that, pending DOE authorization, Deep Fission was targeting construction completion and first criticality by July 4, 2026 — an extremely aggressive timeline.

Why this matters for SMRs:

This is another sign that advanced nuclear companies are trying to use the current AI/data-center power demand narrative and the DOE pilot pathway to access public capital. Like Oklo, Aalo, Radiant, Last Energy, and others, Deep Fission is positioning itself around faster deployment, smaller reactors, and nontraditional siting/regulatory models. Reuters previously reported that the DOE pilot program selected projects including Deep Fission, Oklo, Aalo, Antares, Radiant, Last Energy, Terrestrial Energy, Natura, Atomic Alchemy, and Valar, with developers responsible for their own lifecycle costs.

Important caveat:

This offering is a financing milestone, not a technology validation milestone. The key questions remain: Can Deep Fission actually build and license/authorize the pilot? Can a one-mile-underground PWR model be constructed, operated, serviced, and eventually commercialized economically? And will the DOE pilot pathway translate into commercially bankable nuclear projects, or mostly one-off demonstrations?

TL;DR:

Deep Fission is seeking to go public under ticker FISN, offering 6 million shares at an expected $24–$26 price range. Proceeds will help fund development of its one-mile-underground SMR pilot in Kansas. Interesting signal for advanced nuclear capital markets, but the real proof will be regulatory progress, construction execution, criticality, and economics — not the IPO itself.

Looks like The Information has written an articles on Valar Atomics. If anyone has access it would be great to get a summary

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Not trying to make this more dramatic than it is, but I think the recent Oklo insider-sale filings are worth discussing carefully.

The important distinction:

1. The recent executed founder sales appear to be under an older March 31, 2025 10b5-1 plan.

The April 1 sales by Caroline Cochran/Jacob DeWitte entities were disclosed as being made under a Rule 10b5-1 trading plan adopted on March 31, 2025. The recent 13D/A also says the March 2 and April 1 open-market sales — 200,000 shares on March 2 and 200,000 shares on April 1 — were made under that March 31, 2025 plan.

That makes those sales less concerning than if insiders had suddenly decided to sell after a specific recent announcement. A 10b5-1 plan is pre-arranged, and founders can rationally diversify after a huge stock move.

2. But the newer Form 144s appear to reference a September 22, 2025 10b5-1 plan.

That is the part I think investors should pay attention to. If the March 2025 plan governed the earlier sale program, and a September 2025 plan is now being used for proposed future sales, this may not be a one-time diversification event. It may be an ongoing structured liquidity program.

Again, that is not illegal or necessarily “bad.”

Founders still appear to own a large stake. The 13D/A shows Jacob DeWitte and Caroline Cochran may be deemed to beneficially own about 21.16 million shares, or 12.2% of the Class A common stock.

But it does raise a fair investor question:

Is the public-market narrative becoming more certain-sounding while insiders are simultaneously using the valuation window to steadily monetize?

That does not mean Oklo is a scam. It does not mean the founders do not believe in the company. But Oklo is still pre-commercial, and a lot of the current valuation depends on future execution: licensing, fuel, construction, customer economics, and actual power deployment.

My take:

the sales are explainable, but they should reduce the “insiders are holding tight because the upside is obvious” argument. The founders still have major exposure, but they are also taking meaningful liquidity.

For me, this is a reason to separate two questions:

Company question:

Could Oklo become an important advanced nuclear company? Yes, possibly.

Stock question:

Is the current valuation attractive given the insider selling, execution risk, and how much success is already priced in? Much less obvious

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DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy and the National Reactor Innovation Center announced the first developers selected for the new Nuclear Energy Launch Pad program.

The four initial selections are:

Deployable Energy

General Matter

NuCube Energy and Idaho State University

Radiant Industries

The program is designed to help private nuclear developers move from concept toward commercial deployment. According to NRIC, Launch Pad builds on DOE’s earlier Reactor Pilot Program and Fuel Line Pilot Program, but broadens the scope beyond just reactor and fuel technologies. The goal is to provide more flexible technical, regulatory, and deployment support for a wider range of advanced nuclear technologies and applications.

One important detail: these companies were selected from the initial pool of Reactor Pilot Program and Fuel Line Pilot Program applicants. Inclusion in Launch Pad does not mean a reactor is approved or ready to build. It means these groups can begin discussions with NRIC about the enhanced support the program can provide.

Launch Pad will have two main pathways:

1. Launch Pad INL — for nuclear projects located at Idaho National Laboratory.

2. Launch Pad U.S.A. — for nuclear projects outside INL, including projects on non-INL sites that still need regulatory and technical support.

DOE/NRIC says it plans to issue an official call for Launch Pad applications in the coming weeks and expects to announce additional selections later this year.

My read:

This is not a “commercial deployment tomorrow” announcement, but it is a meaningful signal. DOE appears to be trying to create a more structured bridge between advanced nuclear concepts, test infrastructure, regulatory support, and eventual deployment. For microreactors and early advanced reactor developers, that bridge is one of the biggest missing pieces.

https://interestingengineering.com/energy/terrapower-kemmerer-nuclear-plant-construction-wyoming

TerraPower has officially started construction on Kemmerer Unit 1, its first Natrium reactor project in Wyoming. The company is calling it the first utility-scale advanced nuclear power plant in the United States. This follows the NRC’s construction permit approval last month and moves the project from site prep/non-nuclear construction into the more meaningful field execution phase.

The Natrium design is a 345 MWe sodium-cooled fast reactor paired with a molten-salt thermal energy storage system that can temporarily boost output to 500 MWe. That storage component is one of the more interesting parts of the design because it is meant to make the plant more flexible than a traditional baseload nuclear plant, especially in grids with variable renewables.

A few key points:

TerraPower submitted its NRC construction permit application in March 2024.

The NRC review began in May 2024 and was completed faster than the initial 27-month schedule.

Non-nuclear construction at the Kemmerer site began in June 2024.

The project is being developed through the DOE’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program.

TerraPower still needs a future operating license before the plant can generate power.

Completion is still targeted around 2030.

Bechtel is the EPC partner, which matters because the next big question for advanced nuclear is not just whether the reactor design works, but whether these projects can be built predictably, repeatedly, and at acceptable cost. Bechtel’s statement specifically emphasizes constructability, standardization, digital execution, and “nth-of-a-kind” repeatability.

Why this matters:

This is a major milestone for U.S. advanced nuclear. TerraPower is now further along in the conventional NRC construction pathway than most advanced reactor developers, and Kemmerer is becoming one of the most important real-world tests of whether advanced nuclear can move from PowerPoint and licensing milestones into actual project execution.

My take:

The significance is not that the plant is guaranteed to be cheap or on schedule. It is that TerraPower has crossed a real regulatory/construction threshold. The next phase is where the hard questions start: supply chain, HALEU fuel availability, construction productivity, cost control, and whether the Natrium design can become a repeatable fleet model rather than a one-off demonstration.

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https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260423742786/en/Oklo-NVIDIA-and-Los-Alamos-National-Laboratory-Collaborate-to-Advance-Nuclear-Fuel-Validation-at-Los-Alamos-in-Support-of-Nuclear-Powered-AI-Factories

Oklo, NVIDIA, and LANL just announced a collaboration focused on plutonium-bearing fuel validation, AI-enabled nuclear fuel R&D, and studies for “nuclear-powered AI factories” at Los Alamos.

The notable part is the mix: Oklo brings the reactor platform, NVIDIA brings AI/HPC infrastructure, and LANL brings fuel/materials expertise.

Focus areas include:

– AI models for fuel validation and fuel R&D

– materials science / fabrication work for plutonium-bearing fuels

– grid reliability / redundancy studies for AI-factory concepts

My take: interesting and strategically notable, especially because it connects advanced nuclear to AI infrastructure through a national lab. But this is still R&D / validation work, not a reactor build, licensing milestone, or binding commercial deployment announcement

https://world-nuclear-news.org/articles/kairos-breaks-ground-for-hermes-2-reactor

https://www.ans.org/news/2026-04-21/article-7964/kairos-power-breaks-ground-on-first-powerproducing-reactor-in-oak-ridge/

Kairos Power just broke ground on Hermes 2, their first power-producing reactor. This is a big milestone for Gen IV reactors in the U.S. Hermes 2 is planned to supply up to 50 MW to the Tennessee Valley Authority grid and is tied to a Google-backed agreement. If all goes to plan, this could be the first non-light-water reactor licensed by the NRC to generate power. They’re aiming for operation by 2030

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https://www.cleveland.com/news/2026/04/price-of-power-the-future-of-american-nuclear-built-over-a-troubled-past.html

Interesting piece on the non-technical side of the U.S. nuclear revival.

The article looks at the push for new nuclear in Ohio against a pretty troubled backdrop: old project failures, bailout/corruption baggage, and long-running distrust in communities tied to the legacy nuclear complex.

That matters for SMRs. A lot of the discussion in this space focuses on design, licensing, and cost, but public acceptance / local trust may end up being just as important, especially at legacy sites or places with contamination history.

DOE is already leaning into “consent-based siting,” which tells you this is a real issue, not just activist rhetoric.

My takeaway:

if SMRs are going to scale, developers will need more than good reactor tech and federal support — they’ll need genuine local credibility.

Question:

Do you think NIMBYism / community distrust is being underestimated as a constraint on U.S. SMR deployment?

Summary:

Matt Loszak’s core argument is that nuclear changes when it stops being treated like a giant custom megaproject and starts being treated like a manufactured product. He frames Aalo’s thesis around microreactors for data centers and industrial loads, with smaller standardized units built in factories, shipped to site, and deployed in modular “pods” rather than one-off bespoke plants. Aalo says its first commercial product is the Aalo Pod, a 50 MWe plant aimed at data centers, while Aalo-X is the experimental step meant to validate the underlying reactor design near Idaho National Lab.

The big themes in the interview appear to be:

AI/data-center demand is creating a real opening for nuclear, because customers increasingly want firm, always-on power rather than intermittent supply.

Manufacturing and repeatability matter more than just reactor elegance; Aalo’s pitch is that nuclear needs Ford-style standardization, not endless custom engineering.

Microreactors may have an easier first market than large grid-scale plants because they can target premium customers willing to pay for speed, reliability, and siting flexibility. Thoughtful Money’s summary of the interview highlights the same points: rising electricity demand, especially from AI, the limits of traditional custom-built reactors, and the case for factory-built modular microreactors.

Why it matters for SMRs/microreactors:

This is basically the strongest version of the “productized nuclear” thesis. If Aalo is right, the winners in advanced nuclear may not be the companies with the most ambitious reactor physics, but the ones that can actually manufacture, site, license, fuel, and deploy standardized units at speed. That is a meaningful shift in emphasis from “best reactor” to “best deployable system.”