Stephen Edkins

Likes renewable energy, loves nuclear. Cycling, rugby, skiing, hiking. Fighting for better customer service.

[Martin Varsavsky @martinvars]

El cuello de botella de la IA ya no son solo los chips. Es la electricidad firme. En mayo vimos acuerdos que hace dos años habrían sonado raros: NANO Nuclear con Supermicro para estudiar microreactores ligados a infraestructura de IA; Terrestrial Energy con Riot para centros de datos nucleares; Blue Energy y GE Vernova planteando 2.5 GW con SMR BWRX-300. No es romanticismo nuclear, es aritmética industrial. Un centro de datos de IA no puede depender de energía intermitente si debe entrenar y servir modelos 24/7. La economía digital vuelve a una verdad física: sin permisos rápidos, capital privado y energía abundante, no hay liderazgo tecnológico. Europa discute límites; otros están conectando reactores a GPUs.

[Stephen Edkins @stephenedkins]

@stevehou Competition starts at home. Chinese consumers demand and look for the best deal. No brand loyalty. Zero switching costs.

[Stephen Edkins @stephenedkins]

Excellent interview

[Patrick OShaughnessy @patrick_oshag]

.@ScottNolan started his career as employee 30 at SpaceX. He left to join Founders Fund after Peter Thiel recruited him personally in 2011, and spent the next 12 years backing companies like SpaceX, Anduril, Radiant, and Crusoe Energy.

The through line across all of it, and the worldview Thiel built Founders Fund around, was finding important problems that incumbents have no incentive to solve. Scott's version of that thesis was physical-world companies in a decade when venture capital had largely decided not to fund them.

Before starting @generalmatter, Scott met nearly every advanced reactor company in America. They all were constrained by the same problem - no one was enriching uranium domestically at scale. He spent 2023 looking to invest in a company solving it and found none.

The US once led the world in enrichment. But it let its enrichment plants calcify and shut down its last domestically owned facility in 2013. Today Russia supplies about 25% of the enriched uranium that fuels 20% of the country's electricity. Congress has already passed a ban on those imports that takes full effect in 2028.

So Scott started General Matter, the first private American uranium enrichment company, built on DOE land in Kentucky where the country's last enrichment plant once operated. In January, the DOE awarded it a $900 million contract.

Thiel sits on almost no boards, yet he joined General Matter's.

Enjoy this great conversation with Scott Nolan.

Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
1:00 Finding Important Problems
6:18 Lessons from Peter Thiel
9:32 Spotting Underappreciated Companies
21:46 The Danger of Falling in Love with Ideas
25:12 The Nuclear Energy Bottleneck
30:44 Why America Needs to Vertically Integrate
37:55 AI, Data Centers, and the Energy Squeeze
45:41 Advanced Nuclear Reactors
49:27 The Bring Your Own Energy (BYOE) Concept
53:45 Navigating America's Nuclear Fuel Cliffs
1:15:32 The Trade-offs Between Investing and Operating
1:18:00 Kindest Thing

[Stephen Edkins @stephenedkins]

@FutureJurvetson @_BryceTech @SpaceX Launches is more even https://t.co/muEZrfSChl

[Stephen Edkins @stephenedkins]

@Brad_Setser US is already a big net exporter (3 million bpd) of oil and petro products and it could easily double in the next 24 months.

[Stephen Edkins @stephenedkins]

@Brad_Setser Yes but this will have a big impact on semidollars not flowing into the US

[Stephen Edkins @stephenedkins]

In 2022 the impact of gas prices on Spain was much bigger.

[Rafael Domenech | @BBVAResearch & @UV_EG @rdomenechv]

Spain is a role model in weathering Iranian oil shocks, by C. Palladino

The country’s speedy rollout of renewables has put a lid on electricity bills

https://t.co/HUNn1zTtAy vía @ft

[Stephen Edkins @stephenedkins]

@Brad_Setser AI will be a massive drag on growth ex-Asia. A typical $5bn 100MW datacenter in the US or Europe will probably reduce GDP by $3bn via the trade balance..

[Stephen Edkins @stephenedkins]

@Brad_Setser Correction this chart shows that it is nearly going into foreign bonds. So back to tomfoolery…

[Stephen Edkins @stephenedkins]

@Brad_Setser Based on anecdotes I would wager a very high percentage of car exports are being financed by the state owned banks. Industrial policy it undoubtedly is. You can then argue whether it is unfair or not.

[Stephen Edkins @stephenedkins]

@Brad_Setser How much of this is just plain old export financing/lending to Chinese companies’ subsidiaries abroad. That is not really tomfoolery…

[Stephen Edkins @stephenedkins]

Breakdown of Spain’s 4Q GDP growth. Public spending was flat. All private sector.

[Ángel Talavera @atalaveraEcon]

We often talk about how much Irish GDP data is distorting Eurozone economic statistics, but can we stop for a second to appreciate the impact of Spanish employment numbers? 80% of all Eurozone employment in the past three quarters come from Spain😮😮😮

[Stephen Edkins @stephenedkins]

@BlowhardEsq @mezcalsoda Up there to be sure. I think Koch is better though.

[Stephen Edkins @stephenedkins]

@BawaliBaba40647 @DanielKral1 UK not included — they did their own deal last year https://t.co/cHSuJzJGEB

[Stephen Edkins @stephenedkins]

@BawaliBaba40647 @DanielKral1 If true then Tata will definitely get priority

[Stephen Edkins @stephenedkins]

@BawaliBaba40647 @DanielKral1 And it does not help Tata whose Land Rovers are made in the UK

[Stephen Edkins @stephenedkins]

@MichaelAArouet Spain actually overreports unemployment unlike the UK which shoves all its unemployed into the long-term disability category.