The Nuclear Co. (TNC), a startup that emerged from stealth in 2024 as America’s full-stack nuclear project integrator, is preparing to propose one of the first large-scale conventional reactor builds in the United States in more than a decade.
According to Bloomberg, the company could unveil plans as soon as this week for an AP1000 reactor at one of three potential sites in South Carolina. The move comes as surging electricity demand, fueled largely by AI data centers, forces utilities and developers to confront the limits of today’s grid.
TNC showed up with a design-once, build-many methodology and fresh Series A funding in hand as the firm opened its primary engineering and construction office in Columbia, SC, last year.
Governor Henry McMaster welcomed the move, which is expected to create more than 100 jobs while supporting a targeted 6-gigawatt fleet rollout. South Carolina already generates over half its electricity from nuclear power, boasts established infrastructure, a skilled workforce, and a state leadership clearly committed to expansion.
The timing feels both promising and painfully familiar:
-Just days ago we asked whether America sits on the verge of a nuclear renaissance
-We have chronicled the historic first federal approval for novel reactor technology
-The Washington facility is slated to host 12 Amazon-funded small modular reactors
-Nano Nuclear’s construction permit was submitted for its Kronos unit in Illinois
-We tracked the steady drumbeat of SMR licensing approvals
-President Trump’s executive orders to fast-track small modular reactor development drew widespread applause
-We even reported on the national emergency declaration that positioned the U.S. government to purchase 10 large new reactors
Yet for all that…
China continues to lead with dozens of units under construction. Russia and India press forward while America’s own expertise has atrophied after a generation of near-total inactivity. Even Iran is building more nuclear plants than the US...
At least the US will have some really cool microreactors to play with, and they’ll only need 999 more of them to even come close to a single AP1000.
The frustration deepens when one considers the $80 billion strategic partnership struck last October between Cameco, Brookfield, and the U.S. government to deploy Westinghouse reactors across the country.
Six months later, that headline figure has produced zero visible shovels in the dirt.
If the times really are changing and nuclear steel is about to get put into the ground, investors would do themselves some good to consider where the upside is in the construction of a new plant. Uranium prices are going to be more directly driven by the wider global supply-demand gap, not necessarily the reactor build itself, where fuel only accounts for roughly 5% of the cost of a new reactor.
The most likely investment opportunity for a new nuclear facility rests in the construction companies, heavy equipment manufacturers, and service providers for the facility. Companies like Fluor, Amentum, Curtiss-Wright, Mirion Technologies, ATI, Flowserve, and Crane Company are just a few examples.