Will Dufton didn’t think nuclear energy startups could compete on cost or time to market. Then he spearheaded his venture firm’s investment in small reactor developer Radiant Industries. The Giant Ventures principal, based in London, shares where nuclear can compete and what he’s tracking amid intense policy upheaval in the U.S.
What changed your mind about investing in nuclear energy?
“I started looking into what it would cost to send diesel to a forward operation for the U.S. Army: hundreds of dollars per gallon in the most extreme environments. “You don’t need to be competitive with grid-scale nuclear — you just need to be competitive with where the cost of diesel is most extreme, if you can be first to market with a working reactor that plugs in, that creates a lot of opportunity to dominate the broader nuclear space.”
How are you and the team thinking about U.S. investment, given the intense policy uncertainty?
“You built clean infrastructure before [2022’s Inflation Reduction Act]. You need clean infrastructure after the IRA — and it is the best chance to meet the logarithmic curve of energy demand. Then you look at materials, supply chain vulnerabilities. We’re not going to stop investing in the U.S.”
What steps are European governments taking to attract investment?
“Europe has unbelievable technical and entrepreneurial talents. It’s just more distributed; there are so many idiosyncratic commercial challenges, country by country. “Founders want to build their businesses here. They really don’t — unless they have to — want to go to the U.S., because it is an effort. They want to succeed in Europe.

Full interview : Will Dufton of Giant Ventures, the backer of Radiant Industries, answers questions on future of energy technology in the United States.

For more see the OODA Company Profile on Radiant Industries.