EP 173: Bret Kugelmass | The West Bet on the Wrong Energy Future

Power demand is rising faster than the systems meant to support it.
AI, electrification, and industry all need stable energy, but the dominant story sold to the public was far simpler than reality.
 In this episode, Bret Kugelmass explains why the real bottleneck was never just climate ambition, but how the West misunderstood energy itself.

For years, nuclear was framed as too dangerous, too slow, too expensive, and politically untouchable. Meanwhile, electricity demand kept rising, industrial resilience became strategic again, and the gap between energy ambition and physical reality widened.

This conversation gets underneath the narrative. (Recorded November 2023)

Bret Kugelmass, Founder and CEO of Last Energy, argues that the nuclear debate was never only about science or safety. It was also about incentives, regulation, public perception, delivery models, and the failure to distinguish what is inherent to the technology from what is imposed by the system around it.

Drawing on his path from Silicon Valley entrepreneurship into deep energy infrastructure, Bret explains why he believes the West solved for the wrong variables, why wind and solar alone cannot carry modern industrial societies in many regions, and why the real breakthrough in nuclear may not come from reinventing the reactor, but from reinventing how power plants are built, sold, and deployed.

As he puts it:
 (00:33:11) “Solve the wrong problem brilliantly and you’ll be the only one who cares.”

This episode is not just about nuclear energy.
 It is about first-principles thinking, product-market fit in deep tech, and the kind of contrarian founder logic required to build where politics, infrastructure, and capital collide.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode
1️⃣ Why Bret says the West misunderstood the real energy bottleneck
2️⃣ Why net zero may be the wrong framing for climate ambition
3️⃣ What most people still get wrong about nuclear waste, safety, and Fukushima
4️⃣ Why nuclear’s real challenge is cost and construction, not physics
5️⃣ How Last Energy reframed the business by selling electricity, not reactors
6️⃣ What founders can learn from solving the right problem before scaling

Selected Timestamps
(00:04:29) Introduction
(00:04:29) Defining climate goals beyond net zero
(00:13:46) Bret discovers nuclear mission and truth
(00:19:44) Chernobyl versus Fukushima what truly matters
(00:21:39) Nuclear's unmatched physics for abundant energy
(00:30:08) Ideal world nuclear plants in 18 months
(00:36:02) Solving the right problem before building
(00:42:58) First principles simplicity as Last Energy’s edge
(00:51:16) Securing 30 billion through true product market fit
(00:54:05) Last Energy vision for tens of thousands of gigawatts
(00:56:12) Taking ultimate responsibility to drive massive global progress

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Transcript

00:00:01:06 - 00:00:30:24

Christian Soschner

For years, the West told itself that wind and solar alone would carry the future, and now the power demand from artificial intelligence, data centers, electrification and industrial resilience is rising faster than slogs can keep up. And even Bill gates is now openly arguing that intermittent renewables are not enough on their own, and that round the clock sources like nuclear and geothermal are needed.

00:00:31:01 - 00:00:40:24

Christian Soschner

And exactly that is the tension at the heart of today's episode. Not ideology, not tripe. A brutally simple question

00:00:41:01 - 00:01:03:20

Christian Soschner

what actually powers a prosperous society when the bill for wishful thinking. I'm still. And here is why this conversation matters in 2026. Because back in 2023, when much of the market still treated nuclear as politically toxic, right? Coal Mars was already building in the opposite direction.

00:01:03:24 - 00:01:14:05

Christian Soschner

He had founded the Energy Impact Center in 2017, then turned that research into Last Energy, a company built around the country arguing

00:01:14:07 - 00:01:19:07

Christian Soschner

to not reinvent the reactor, reinvent the delivery model.

00:01:19:09 - 00:01:31:10

Christian Soschner

Last Energy's pitch is simple and radical at the same time, at cost cut construction time and making baseload power deployable again everywhere in the world.

00:01:31:12 - 00:01:35:10

Christian Soschner

Then reality started catching up in 2025.

00:01:35:10 - 00:01:52:23

Christian Soschner

Last energy announced an oversubscribed series C of more than $100 million as nuclear demand accelerated around industrial power needs and data growth. But the real story is not just funding. It is how I found the reasons ahead of the market

00:01:53:02 - 00:01:58:09

Bret Kugelmass

I think the first was when I realized that everything that I knew about nuclear was wrong.

00:01:58:11 - 00:02:07:04

Christian Soschner

And most people stop there. But Brett and his team did not. They kept digging until they found the deeper problem.

00:02:07:06 - 00:02:14:04

Bret Kugelmass

The nuclear industry did not actually want to make cheap nuclear power plants. They wanted to make them as expensive as possible to

00:02:14:06 - 00:02:24:12

Christian Soschner

And that is where this episode shifts from energy debates to found the lesson. Because once you see the real bottleneck, the business model changes.

00:02:24:14 - 00:02:34:22

Bret Kugelmass

market fit. We realized that, customers don't want to buy nuclear technology. They want to buy electricity with the

00:02:34:24 - 00:02:49:08

Christian Soschner

Brett Clemens is the founder and CEO of Last Energy, a former Silicon Valley entrepreneur and engineer who moved from research into company building with a mission to accelerate abundant clean power and human flourishing.

00:02:49:10 - 00:03:16:10

Christian Soschner

This episode is about nuclear power, but underneath that it is about something bigger. How contrarian founders see around corners, how they separate physics from politics, and how they build when the world still thinks. The idea is that if you want to understand what the real deep tech founder sounds like before the consensus fully arrives, this episode is worth your full attention.

00:03:16:12 - 00:03:19:01

Christian Soschner

What do you spend most of your time?

00:03:19:03 - 00:03:33:16

Bret Kugelmass

I spend about 50% of my time traveling, and a lot of that is in Europe, though I spend a lot of time going across the U.S. meeting with our suppliers as well. And then the remainder of my time is my home is in Washington, D.C..

00:03:33:18 - 00:03:36:19

Christian Soschner

50% of your time you spend in Europe?

00:03:36:21 - 00:03:40:18

Bret Kugelmass

Yeah, yeah, it's traveling at least. Yeah. And then most of that's in Europe. Yeah.

00:03:40:20 - 00:03:47:19

Christian Soschner

That's great. That's great. But you're based, you're home. You're from the United States. Basically. You're not European. Moved to the United States?

00:03:47:21 - 00:03:50:05

Bret Kugelmass

No, I'm from Long Island in New York.

00:03:50:07 - 00:03:58:08

Christian Soschner

Okay, okay. In your opinion, what's, But that is similarities between Europe and the United States.

00:03:58:10 - 00:04:05:14

Bret Kugelmass

Well, each country is very different in Europe, and each state is very different in the U.S. so in that way, is there similar?

00:04:05:16 - 00:04:18:22

Christian Soschner

Yeah, I'm still very stereotypical. When I look at the United States as the the country, the United States, and it's take some time to, understand the suddenness that every state is different in the United States.

00:04:18:24 - 00:04:24:11

Bret Kugelmass

Yeah, I guess maybe North Dakota and South Dakota are pretty similar, but most of these different.

00:04:24:13 - 00:04:25:09

Bret Kugelmass

Yeah.

00:04:25:11 - 00:04:44:02

Christian Soschner

Let's jump into the topic of the conversation. Climate change, climate tech and nuclear energy. I'm curious about your assessment. Climate take climate change is, I think one of the hottest topics in the last four years. What's your assessment in climate change? What is it?

00:04:44:04 - 00:05:05:07

Bret Kugelmass

Well, what are people's goals? Do you want to stop warming? Is that the goal? Because we're not doing that. We're also not reducing our emissions, which is a different goal. So, yeah, it all depends. You see, if what you don't want is climate change, I would actually even first pose the question, what about climate change?

00:05:05:07 - 00:05:23:13

Bret Kugelmass

Don't you want? Is it that you don't want the effect on a drought and, you know, and, destabilization of our food systems? Is it that you don't want the destabilization of where people live? Is it that you don't want the poor people to be affected? All of these are very good reasons. But then you have to know why you're fighting for what you're fighting for.

00:05:23:13 - 00:05:32:11

Bret Kugelmass

Because there might be a simpler solution then what is often touted as the solution, which is net zero, which, by the way, net zero doesn't stop

00:05:32:11 - 00:05:38:04

Bret Kugelmass

climate change. We have to go drastically negative, removing historical emissions in order to make any

00:05:38:09 - 00:05:46:19

Bret Kugelmass

impact. So I think people don't really know what they want and you know, but but once you characterize what you want, it's usually pretty straightforward.

00:05:46:19 - 00:05:50:09

Bret Kugelmass

What the what the subset of solutions are.

00:05:50:11 - 00:06:09:09

Christian Soschner

In your opinion, how big is the problem, really? I mean, I hear, always two sides, one say we will die if we don't do anything, the human race will go extinct. And the other side says it's normal. Nothing serious will happen. In your opinion, how how big is the problem that we face? Well.

00:06:09:11 - 00:06:10:01

Bret Kugelmass

Once again, the

00:06:10:01 - 00:06:27:24

Bret Kugelmass

question is like, what is the problem? It's the problem is what is the impact that we have on the poorest in society? I'd say it's a very big problem. We should do something about that. If what if what you say is the problem is a number of degrees Celsius, I'd say that's not a problem. As a matter of fact, it might be nice if it was a degree Celsius warmer on planet Earth.

00:06:28:01 - 00:06:39:14

Christian Soschner

You mentioned that, the measures that are currently taking in the United States and in Europe are not enough to set the net zero is not enough. We need to do more. Can you dive a little bit deeper into this topic?

00:06:39:14 - 00:06:40:13

Bret Kugelmass

Yeah. Net zero doesn't even

00:06:40:13 - 00:07:03:03

Bret Kugelmass

make any sense as a goal. And then when you talk to any real policymaker or they say, well, it's just a, a catchy phrase and it's a good stepping stone to where we need to go. And I think that's logically incorrect. I think where we need to go, if you want to stop warming, if that's your goal, to stop warming, you need to get back to an equilibrium state, right?

00:07:03:03 - 00:07:32:10

Bret Kugelmass

With radiative forcing. What does that mean? That means you need 300 parts per million of CO2 in the air. Okay, well, that's a very different challenge than reducing future emissions. Okay. And one might want to assess is it worth reducing future emissions at all if you can't get back into an equilibrium state. And I would say due to positive feedback effects, no, there's no point in reducing future emissions at all.

00:07:32:12 - 00:07:48:09

Bret Kugelmass

If you're going to end up in the same place anyway because of these positive feedback effects, that will eventually take over any emissions, that people have put into the air to begin with. So yeah. So it's like, yeah, it all comes back to, to what's your goal?

00:07:48:11 - 00:07:52:10

Christian Soschner

How would you define, the right goal for us?

00:07:52:12 - 00:08:16:10

Bret Kugelmass

I'd say, forget about the negatives. Right? I don't think that we should be thinking in a negative framing. I actually don't think that helps very much, other than to get some people interested and some people excited and some people concerned. Yeah, the negatives help there. But in terms of what we really want to do, if we really want to inspire, solutions, then what we should do is use the positive framing.

00:08:16:10 - 00:08:37:17

Bret Kugelmass

So I think our goal should be to increase human prosperity across the board, bring everyone out of poverty, bring everyone on our planet up to the to the greatest standard of living possible. And you know, if that has to do with climate change and if climate change is part of the the way to accomplish that, you know, solving your like, stopping changing climate are great.

00:08:37:17 - 00:08:49:07

Bret Kugelmass

But if there's another way that achieves that same end goal and leads to, you know, another degree of Celsius or two warming, okay, that's great too, because yeah, my goal is prosperity for all humankind.

00:08:49:09 - 00:09:14:14

Christian Soschner

I love that I couldn't agree more. I think, positive goals are more attractive than fear based goals. Prosperity for all humankind. To think we should remember that and make this the the working assumption rather than, threatening extinction? Something like that. The role of innovation and technology. What role does it play when we want to get the human race to the next level?

00:09:14:16 - 00:09:17:03

Bret Kugelmass

It's everything. It's everything. If you think

00:09:17:07 - 00:09:29:11

Bret Kugelmass

you can take a naturalist perspective and accomplish anything on this planet at this scale with where we are today or insane, yes, technology is the key to a brighter future. Period. End of story.

00:09:29:13 - 00:09:56:05

Christian Soschner

That's great. That's great. I mean, I live in Europe and, but my parents are from Germany. I'm here in Austria. And I think the market sentiment when it comes to achieving the goals that you mentioned currently is, solar and wind. We it's everything that we need and nothing more. Austria is absolutely against producing nuclear energy, but very positive.

00:09:56:07 - 00:10:00:03

Christian Soschner

Important. It's a matter of fact, we bought it. What role does nuclear.

00:10:00:06 - 00:10:02:06

Bret Kugelmass

Industry is against human beings?

00:10:02:08 - 00:10:06:04

Bret Kugelmass

Like as far as how do you feel about that? You're the one living there.

00:10:06:04 - 00:10:09:23

Bret Kugelmass

I mean, it seems like everything that they want is less humans.

00:10:10:00 - 00:10:11:08

Christian Soschner

Oh, really? You think so?

00:10:11:10 - 00:10:16:08

Bret Kugelmass

I think the yes, I think the Austrians and I think, Well, now I'm painting with a broad brush. I

00:10:16:08 - 00:10:34:05

Bret Kugelmass

don't mean literally everyone. I mean, as a culture and also the parts of Germany that are most associated with Austrian culture, I think they would prefer a malthusian perspective, reduce the amount of humans, reduce consumption. Everyone you know live in a naturalist society and forego all future innovation.

00:10:34:05 - 00:10:37:21

Bret Kugelmass

But that's just my perspective. Whether what they are.

00:10:37:21 - 00:10:42:08

Christian Soschner

Yeah, yeah, but that perspective come from,

00:10:42:10 - 00:10:47:08

Bret Kugelmass

Any Austrian I've interacted with and readings on the matter.

00:10:47:10 - 00:10:48:08

Christian Soschner

Yeah. Yeah. Are you.

00:10:48:08 - 00:10:55:18

Bret Kugelmass

Different? Do you feel differently? And and do people in your culture and community feel differently?

00:10:55:20 - 00:11:19:24

Christian Soschner

Let me think about it. How should I phrase it in a correct way? I mean, Germany shut down, nuclear power plants, which, I think in a time when we face already shortages and electricity, it's not the right way to go. Here in Austria. That's indeed the my opinion, some tendencies, to go back to what you call a natural state of living.

00:11:20:01 - 00:11:42:21

Christian Soschner

No technology at all. I mean, we have some new taxes that I don't think is, either it's not really the right way to go to achieve the goals I like more the positive formulation that you have that we have to find ways, to elevate the living standards, not reduce it. And at the same time, for all human beings without destroying the environment.

00:11:42:24 - 00:12:08:01

Christian Soschner

I think this is a matter of fact. I agree partially to your, to your statements. To put more nuance, not everybody here, thinks the same way, but I think it's, it's a very fierce and tough, discussion as I see it in the United States. I think California, is more, tending towards, the description that you gave before about Austria and Germany.

00:12:08:03 - 00:12:13:02

Bret Kugelmass

The elites, the elites of California. Let's separate the the working man in California.

00:12:13:04 - 00:12:13:23

Bret Kugelmass

Yeah.

00:12:14:00 - 00:12:16:15

Christian Soschner

Yeah. How how is the working class thinking about it?

00:12:16:17 - 00:12:16:23

Bret Kugelmass

I

00:12:16:23 - 00:12:36:24

Bret Kugelmass

think the working class is much more practical. You know, they want, you know, do they want to get to work inexpensively? They want to work hard. They don't, you know, they don't think the government should just take care of everything for them because they've got a more realistic perspective on the limitations of government. No. I think the working class has the right perspective.

00:12:36:24 - 00:12:57:03

Bret Kugelmass

And I think, you know, often times they might they might attack the issue of climate differently and be very wrong when they, like, attack it on a scientific merit. But when I think they attack it on, the merit of values, I think the working class has it right and the elites have it wrong.

00:12:57:05 - 00:13:18:17

Christian Soschner

I think we have a similar situation here in Europe. I see a, division between the elites and the working class. I think the working class, more practically everybody wants to survive and they want to live. They want to have to pay their rent, afford something to eat while the goals of the elites are more far fetched.

00:13:18:19 - 00:13:23:17

Christian Soschner

Where does this division come from, in your opinion? Why? Why is very drifting so far apart?

00:13:23:22 - 00:13:37:00

Bret Kugelmass

I don't know, I don't study, yeah, I, I, I don't, I don't study society. I have some, you know, opinions just based on what I see. But, I don't know enough to comment intelligently on it.

00:13:37:02 - 00:13:42:11

Christian Soschner

When we look, at climate change, when did you first start thinking about this topic?

00:13:42:13 - 00:13:43:17

Bret Kugelmass

2017.

00:13:43:19 - 00:13:58:21

Bret Kugelmass

I just sold my last company and wanted to, you know, and now I, I had some experience and I had some resources, and I wanted to do something big and important with the next chapter of my life. I was living in San Francisco at the time and ready for a change from San Francisco as well.

00:13:58:21 - 00:14:32:23

Bret Kugelmass

And so I thought, okay, let's let's try something interesting. And ambitious and new. And so I moved to DC and started a research institute focused on this topic, and use that as a vehicle to really explore several sectors, several solutions, explore the problem itself really for two years straight, and then only then did I launch Last Energy, which is a commercial developer of micro nuclear technology and, and, an IP, an independent power producer, where we set up utilities and sell electricity to factories from our technology.

00:14:33:00 - 00:14:53:19

Christian Soschner

In my last episode, they had the speaker from Argentina, and, he's building basically startup sets. Cade. So every year, 6 to 10 new startups. And he said before he started his program, he took one year, to research the area and think about if you want to go in this direction, what was your turning point? What was your turning point?

00:14:53:21 - 00:14:55:05

Christian Soschner

Yeah. So that's climate change.

00:14:55:07 - 00:14:55:13

Bret Kugelmass

I

00:14:55:13 - 00:15:21:12

Bret Kugelmass

highly encourage that for anyone is like spend a year or even to just kind of, checking your own cognitive biases because otherwise, especially when you're tackling, such a difficult and complex business, you're going to be investing a decade or two. You might as well invest a year or two upfront to, you know, really make sure it's what you want to do.

00:15:21:14 - 00:15:25:00

Bret Kugelmass

Where my turning points in discovery,

00:15:25:05 - 00:15:30:17

Bret Kugelmass

I think the first was when I realized that everything that I knew about nuclear was wrong.

00:15:30:19 - 00:15:45:13

Bret Kugelmass

So, there are there are a couple, like, principle facts that I came across in the first three months that made me question everything. And then, you know, about public perception or waste or safety or security or its affiliation with weapons.

00:15:45:18 - 00:16:13:02

Bret Kugelmass

All of this stuff. I was wrong. And, have a now have a, like, a totally different understanding, but most people don't. And so that takes a few months. So that was a big turning point. And then, a couple of years in when I understood why everyone like or like why society had such strong misconceptions and where that was coming from, when I finally understood the root cause of the issue, not the proximate cause, but the root cause.

00:16:13:06 - 00:16:20:20

Bret Kugelmass

That was the fundamental turning point for me that decided or that allowed for me to decide to, you know, dedicate the rest of my life to this.

00:16:20:22 - 00:16:24:23

Christian Soschner

So you are on a mission for the rest of your life. Okay.

00:16:25:00 - 00:16:27:10

Bret Kugelmass

What if not? If not, life's after that.

00:16:27:12 - 00:16:35:06

Christian Soschner

Okay. That's great. That's great to. Yeah. What are the three biggest misconceptions? I'm curious now to dive deep in this part.

00:16:35:08 - 00:17:00:06

Bret Kugelmass

Well, I think that, the notion of, hazard is a big, a big misconception. People probably think radioactive materials are orders of magnitude more hazardous than they are because the or because the regulations are orders of magnitude more strict. But those two things have absolutely nothing to do with each other. The reason that the regulations are strict is because the industry incumbents make a lot of money.

00:17:00:06 - 00:17:24:19

Bret Kugelmass

The more strict the regulations are and has zero to do with the safety or hazard profile of the, underlying technology itself. And so when you think of waste, people think of nuclear waste as the ultimate danger. It's actually not that hazard is not that toxic. It is toxic, don't get me wrong. But it doesn't take much or compare very much to so many other toxins that we handle in quantities a thousand times as large.

00:17:24:21 - 00:17:36:24

Bret Kugelmass

So like, what do we do with all the heavy metals that we process? What do we do with all the chemicals that we process? What do we do with arsenic that's in your backyard or in your furniture? What do we do with the fire retardant? You know, materials that are in your mattress. What do we do with it?

00:17:36:24 - 00:17:55:00

Bret Kugelmass

We throw it in a landfill and you don't eat it. And that's all you need to do with nuclear waste to throw it in a landfill. Don't eat it. You'll be fine. And so that's one big misconception. Another is the hazard profile. Most people think. And once again, this is because this is what the nuclear industry tells them.

00:17:55:02 - 00:18:03:19

Bret Kugelmass

They say nuclear is the ultimate hazard. If everything goes wrong, it goes really wrong. And we, the nuclear elites, we the nuclear scientists,

00:18:03:21 - 00:18:21:02

Bret Kugelmass

we in the ivory tower, only we we the priest, we the priesthood only we can keep you safe. So that's what society has been told for, you know, five decades now. And so I, by the way, I don't blame anyone in society for feeling that way like you are.

00:18:21:04 - 00:18:24:10

Bret Kugelmass

You are totally right to feel that way. You are 100%

00:18:24:12 - 00:18:49:14

Bret Kugelmass

validated to feel that nuclear is dangerous because the, quote unquote, nuclear experts for 50 years have been telling you it's dangerous, but they are wrong. And so we saw empirical evidence of this with Fukushima. You had not one, not two, but three full scale gigawatt size meltdowns where every single safety system failed, including the roof itself.

00:18:49:16 - 00:19:15:19

Bret Kugelmass

And what happened? Nothing. Nothing. No one got hurt. No injuries from radiation, no deaths from radiation. That's with zero safety systems and three meltdowns. So what do we have all of this protection for? What do we have all of these. This, this, you know, these, these extreme regulations for what do we have, you know, almost a million people in the nuclear industry telling you that this is the ultimate hazard for.

00:19:15:19 - 00:19:22:20

Bret Kugelmass

Well, it's because those million people in the nuclear industry make a ton of money protecting you from it.

00:19:22:22 - 00:19:40:04

Christian Soschner

What, in your opinion? And he grew up I grew up in the 70s, 80s, and, I experienced Chernobyl. And so at the time back then, when, kids were not allowed to leave the house because of radiation and stuff like that, what's the difference between Fukushima and Champion in the magnitude of, what's happened?

00:19:40:06 - 00:19:40:15

Bret Kugelmass

Yeah.

00:19:40:15 - 00:20:09:13

Bret Kugelmass

So and this is a complex and nuanced topic. So let's just start off the fact with Chernobyl was not a normal power plant. It was a giant block of graphite with embedded uranium in it that happened to make power, but was designed to make weapons, weapons, nuclear weapons for the Soviet nuclear weapons industry. That type of reactor, the Rbmk, is a special type that is used to make plutonium weapons material.

00:20:09:15 - 00:20:42:10

Bret Kugelmass

So the and the whole city around it, Pripyat, like it was a secret city. Why? Because it was a war time establishment meant to design a technology that could destroy the world. So that's a special type of reactor. That's not a reactor that is commonly used in commercial systems only really in former Soviet, almost all reactors that are around that, you know, the for, you know, 400 plus that provide 10% of world electricity or water based reactors, that's like Fukushima.

00:20:42:11 - 00:21:04:08

Bret Kugelmass

So what's that worse that happens in a water based system. Well, the water boils off. The fuel could melt. Yes, because of decay energy, not because of a runaway critical reaction. That can't happen in a water based reactor. And then if the fuel melts, okay, the hazardous material, it sits in a puddle on the floor. Big deal. So very different.

00:21:04:08 - 00:21:06:06

Bret Kugelmass

The two systems.

00:21:06:08 - 00:21:35:15

Christian Soschner

When you get interested in nuclear energy, and you started with cam, it's taken then came nuclear. And in this range you have other energy forms as well. What drew you to nuclear energy? I mean, wind, solar, these are all nice, things to play around. Elon Musk is betting on, solar, I guess, what made nuclear so attractive for you personally that you said this is the thing that I want to do for the rest of my life.

00:21:35:17 - 00:21:36:19

Bret Kugelmass

If you if you

00:21:36:19 - 00:22:07:12

Bret Kugelmass

actually care about decoupling industry from the environment, if you actually care about producing abundant energy for mankind, there is one solution and one solution only, and that is nuclear power. None of the other energy sources even hold a candle to it. When you were just look at the raw physics of it. Amount of material in right, steel, concrete, you know, copper wire, whatever versus electrons out.

00:22:07:14 - 00:22:32:13

Bret Kugelmass

You were talking several orders of magnitude difference. So we're not talking about like a 20% advantage or 50% advantage. That might be enough for me to make a very bold claim about how great a particular, category of technology is. We're talking about a thousand fold difference. So the real problem to solve is like, why does it cost so much?

00:22:32:13 - 00:22:51:11

Bret Kugelmass

Why does it take so long to build? But once you solve those problems, we can enter into a new stage of humanity where we have a thousand times as much energy for the same cost, for the same material consumption, for the same environmental impact. I mean, that is truly wondrous. And so that is why I'm dedicating the rest of my life to this one.

00:22:51:11 - 00:23:09:10

Christian Soschner

Technology mean makes sense in my opinion. I'm, very nuclear friendly here in Austria, but the narrative in Germany and Austria, especially coming from the left wing, is, wind and solar are sufficient. And when I listen to you, it doesn't sound like that. Can you?

00:23:09:12 - 00:23:12:10

Bret Kugelmass

If you look, if you listen to data, it doesn't sound like that either.

00:23:12:12 - 00:23:16:03

Christian Soschner

Can you tell us in the data, why is wind and solar not enough?

00:23:16:05 - 00:23:16:20

Bret Kugelmass

So

00:23:16:20 - 00:23:40:16

Bret Kugelmass

we could tackle this? We could tackle this from a climate perspective or from a carbon emissions perspective. We could tackle this from an energy perspective. We could tackle this from an economics perspective. I mean, any which way you look, these are pathetic, terrible energy sources. Now, don't get me wrong. It's nice to have clean air, and it's nice to be in an environment that has, energy sources around you that don't emit, you know, pollutants like, coal wood.

00:23:40:21 - 00:23:59:03

Bret Kugelmass

But in terms of their impact on the grid, in terms of their own embedded carbon emissions. I mean, what you think that a solar panel doesn't have any, carbon footprint to it? And then, oh, when you think about a solar panel plus all of the energy storage that you say you're going to make it function like a normal nuclear system, you don't think that has any carbon footprint to it.

00:23:59:05 - 00:24:20:05

Bret Kugelmass

Pretty soon, the carbon footprint of solar plus storage, plus all of the infrastructure changes that you have to make is looking an awful lot like combined cycle natural gas. And even if it was, 50%, does that actually get you anything on your climate goals? No, not even close. So what's the point? Maybe clean air in some places? Yes, I support that.

00:24:20:05 - 00:24:40:19

Bret Kugelmass

Great. Do it if you've got some subsidy or you've got, you know, some infrastructure that allows you to swap out a dirty air pollutant energy source with a clean one, like go for it. Power to you. But if you're talking about making like climactic change or global change or changes to the energy poverty or changes to energy security, there is one answer.

00:24:40:19 - 00:24:45:09

Bret Kugelmass

And that's nuclear. And it's by a long shot.

00:24:45:11 - 00:25:05:01

Christian Soschner

I just let's talk about thinking before I say something. I totally agree to what you say. Even cleaner is great, but, it always feels to me that we just shift the emissions to other, other continents, other countries. I mean, when you look at solar and wind, I think in Europe, we are in this dire situation that 95% of the value chain is basically in China.

00:25:05:03 - 00:25:26:01

Christian Soschner

And, without Chinese products, we can't power to Korea when the goal is being energy independent. I mean, you never know what happens in the world, and you need to have some basic protection here in Europe. When I listen to you, it sounds like, to me, like you're. There is no way around nuclear it.

00:25:26:03 - 00:25:48:01

Bret Kugelmass

There's a way around it. We don't have. We don't have to live in a magical, beautiful, wonderful society. We can live in like. Like the present course of action forever. I mean, listen, the world is still pretty great, don't get me wrong. So, like, we don't need any of this. I'm just trying to paint a picture for a world that could be like, like, better and better for everyone.

00:25:48:03 - 00:25:52:00

Christian Soschner

What are the three main advantages of nuclear?

00:25:52:02 - 00:25:52:13

Bret Kugelmass

Well,

00:25:52:13 - 00:26:13:00

Bret Kugelmass

when, let's say there's so many advantages, but we can talk about them from like, I guess like I'll start with decoupling energy's impact from the environment, the fact that you need so much, so, so little to create so much, that's like, obviously a huge advantage. That's just like, philosophically from, you know, decoupling, our like, human impact on the world.

00:26:13:02 - 00:26:29:17

Bret Kugelmass

But when it comes from, grid like a grid perspective, electrical perspective, which obviously we all care about because as much as people talk about how they like climate, if they flip the light switch and it didn't turn on, they would drop all of their climate goals. If they couldn't charge their iPhone, they would drop all of their climate goals.

00:26:29:17 - 00:26:45:09

Bret Kugelmass

So let's just be pretty realistic for a second here. If you had to pay $100 more per month on your energy bill, you would drop all of your climate goals. So let's just be realistic about how important the grid is. And so what does nuclear do for the grid? Well, it's everything that you would want from an abstract perspective.

00:26:45:09 - 00:27:09:18

Bret Kugelmass

Like if a grid was just to tell you, hey, like here the characteristics I want in an energy source. You know, a lot of people talk about like baseload. Okay, that means you can produce steady state power. What about dispatchable? Okay. You need more power. You can ramp up when you need it. You've got that, capability, you know, from a, you know, black start perspective or what they call, like, ancillary services from frequency matching, being able to keep the grid at 60Hz.

00:27:09:23 - 00:27:36:15

Bret Kugelmass

Right. So you can actually like plug in your devices and they work or, you know, the momentum literally of the spinning magnet that creates that sector okay. So it's like all of these aspects, that are important to the grid. Oh, the fact that you can match supply and demand. So if one city needs this much, power, you can, you know, source that much supply next to that city because nuclear, you can dislocate it from, environmental requirements.

00:27:36:15 - 00:27:51:21

Bret Kugelmass

You don't need to be next to, a body of water. You don't need to be next to a train track. You don't need to be in a sunny area. You don't need to be in a windy area. You can put it literally anywhere that you want. You could put it underground if you want. So, so that's another characteristic of nuclear that sets it

00:27:51:23 - 00:27:52:12

Bret Kugelmass

foreign.

00:27:52:14 - 00:27:55:11

Bret Kugelmass

By the way, all the other energy sources.

00:27:55:13 - 00:28:17:17

Christian Soschner

That's great can spread to here. I mean, be we experienced here in Europe, especially here in Austria, I mean, Austria power stick, which with, natural gas from Russia. And there were some uncertainties. So we saw the searches and the spikes in energy prices. And within a couple of weeks, the prices went up by about 600%. And this was one of such thing.

00:28:17:17 - 00:28:29:01

Christian Soschner

Okay. What happens if we don't have, electricity? So say I can fold up my life and throw it away. I can't do my job anymore. So we are highly dependent on electricity.

00:28:29:03 - 00:28:29:17

Bret Kugelmass

Yeah.

00:28:29:19 - 00:28:53:08

Bret Kugelmass

Oh, another good thing about nuclear. Sorry. I just realized historically, it has been cheap and it has been fast to build. So that's the thing that's like my two biggest criticisms about nuclear, the two things that need to change. We have historical precedent. Right. So the power plants that we built, you know, from the, you know, in 1968 to 1971, in the US, those are producing power at like $20 a megawatt hour, like, that's as cheap as it gets.

00:28:53:08 - 00:29:01:12

Bret Kugelmass

And it's baseload. So that's like the real cost. You don't have to add all these other system costs to it. So yeah. So affordability that's that's the other big one.

00:29:01:14 - 00:29:15:05

Christian Soschner

The narrative here in Europe is that, against nuclear energy, especially from Germany's, very expensive. And it takes a long time to build a power plant. We talk about 1 or 2 decades, and.

00:29:15:05 - 00:29:15:08

Bret Kugelmass

They're

00:29:15:08 - 00:29:40:08

Bret Kugelmass

right, and they're right and they are right. Those are the problems to solve. Those are good criticisms, and we should tackle those problems. But they aren't inherent to the technology. They are, they are a function of today's, regulatory environment of, you know, the other, you know, societal, maybe influencing factors. You bureaucracy, they have nothing to do with the technology itself.

00:29:40:10 - 00:30:04:16

Christian Soschner

If you could model an ideal environment for your company, which is basically building power plants, and you can take any obstacles away that is within, the legal system, that is within regulations, within politics, and economics. So let's assume everything is solved in the ideal world, how long would it take to build a power plant?

00:30:04:18 - 00:30:11:07

Christian Soschner

From scratch until to a point where it's delivering electricity?

00:30:11:09 - 00:30:12:07

Bret Kugelmass

Well, if

00:30:12:07 - 00:30:34:06

Bret Kugelmass

we're talking about typical stick built construction 18 months, because that's what this size infrastructure takes to build for, like, a natural gas plant or, you know, coal plant or, so we know that you can build this amount of power infrastructure in that period of time using traditional, building and construction methodologies, because we see it all the time.

00:30:34:08 - 00:31:06:18

Bret Kugelmass

It's just all of these additional requirements, and certifications and licenses that, drive nuclear to that point. And in my cases, most of those are unnecessary, or it could be very easily streamlined. Listen, we build skyscrapers, skyscrapers. We build skyscrapers in shorter periods of time, and they have a thousands of people that their lives depend on them getting those calculations for steel and concrete and structural materials and the foundation and the Geotech report, like thousands of lives, are on the line for getting that stuff right.

00:31:06:18 - 00:31:33:12

Bret Kugelmass

And we build skyscrapers all over the place all the time. Really fast, like, like, so we can do that for nuclear, too. Even if you were to claim that there is this tremendous hazard, you should also claim that there's a tremendous power hazard with building a skyscraper. Wrong. So like but we do that all the time. So there's no reason that that can't be our goal for traditional, stick built technology, traditional construction to do it that fast.

00:31:33:14 - 00:32:03:05

Bret Kugelmass

Our process, what we're looking to do with Last Energy, let's bring in automotive manufacturing principles into the production of high throughput manufacturing for nuclear power plants. So we want to change the paradigm. And instead of, you know, having a bunch of construction projects that are built in parallel, what we want to do, you know, on site, what we want to do is centralize production and then just keep cranking up the dial on our throughput.

00:32:03:07 - 00:32:22:23

Bret Kugelmass

So, you know, the first year that we have a factory up and running, you know, we want, you know, one nuclear power plant per week to come off the assembly line. Then after that one per day, then after that three per day, then after that ten per day. So we just want to keep increasing the throughput from what a factory can do in terms of delivering nuclear power plants.

00:32:23:00 - 00:32:39:03

Christian Soschner

So when, for example, Australia decides to go towards nuclear power plants, and we streamline the administration, the governmental administration, you could hand over a nuclear power plant within 18 months.

00:32:39:05 - 00:32:41:20

Bret Kugelmass

I don't think it's ever going to happen in Austria. But,

00:32:41:22 - 00:32:43:23

Christian Soschner

And in the ideal world, in the ideal.

00:32:44:00 - 00:32:53:22

Bret Kugelmass

In the ideal. Yeah. Because I won't have anything to do with Austria. I'll build, I'll build, I'll build a 100 along the border of Austria and Slovenia, and I'll just sell them power over the, over the border.

00:32:53:24 - 00:33:08:00

Christian Soschner

I think Czech Republic would also be a great place. So. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. But, in this ideal world that you describe for your company, you have the capability to build a nuclear power plant practically within 18 months. So it's not a very long term project. It's not a long term project.

00:33:08:00 - 00:33:12:19

Bret Kugelmass

It's a no, I don't think it could be much, much faster to I think that's a conservative estimate.

00:33:12:21 - 00:33:36:03

Christian Soschner

That's that's good to hear. It's promising. But we don't live yet in this world. The world is more complex, more complicated. And what I would like to learn from us, I mean, from my perspective, I'm a fan of nuclear. I think, in the same direction in year two. But when I looked at all these problems, I have no way to go down this route.

00:33:36:03 - 00:33:50:08

Christian Soschner

I have a business background. I have not, a physics background or something like that. So I it's far too complicated for me. What's make you going? Why did you decide in that space to start a company when it's so complicated?

00:33:50:10 - 00:33:53:24

Bret Kugelmass

Now, are you asking why I'm a glutton for punishment? Is that.

00:33:54:01 - 00:33:58:21

Bret Kugelmass

Busted? You know, I that's why I like to torture myself. No.

00:33:58:23 - 00:34:21:07

Bret Kugelmass

It's it's a challenge. Just like any other. It might be the greatest challenge of all, but every challenge has a solution. And if you take, like, a first principles analytical approach, it does not matter how big the challenge is, it does not matter how complicated. It does not matter how hard it is still just a challenge. And you just work your way through it and eventually you solve it.

00:34:21:09 - 00:34:44:07

Christian Soschner

And we walk through the different steps of your thinking process, from the first idea to start something in the energy space, to the point where you flipped the switch and said, okay, I built a company, how did you approach this problem that you this, that you, that you walked, that walked you to this point where you said, okay, this is the right place.

00:34:44:07 - 00:34:49:12

Christian Soschner

There is a place for a company. What is your thinking process?

00:34:49:14 - 00:34:51:07

Bret Kugelmass

Well,

00:34:51:09 - 00:34:59:12

Bret Kugelmass

Building a company is, one of many possible solutions to solve a problem. But company is as opposed.

00:34:59:12 - 00:35:00:21

Bret Kugelmass

To being a.

00:35:00:21 - 00:35:01:19

Bret Kugelmass

Consultant

00:35:01:19 - 00:35:21:16

Bret Kugelmass

or working for or trying to solve it through government. Companies have the ability to be much more agile. And so when you don't have all of the, when you don't have a very clear path laid out, when you know there going to be a lot of new challenges that you have to encounter and you have to be able to shift resources and priorities and focus.

00:35:21:18 - 00:35:42:16

Bret Kugelmass

And you know, who you hire and what they do very quickly. A company is a great organizational structure to do that as opposed to, yeah, a government institution, a nonprofit, you name it. And so that's why a company was the right vehicle to affect the type of change that we wanted to see.

00:35:42:18 - 00:35:58:07

Christian Soschner

That's that's a great point. But, looking at, the, the first starting point and the research you did, what was the signal that you felt to create a company?

00:35:58:09 - 00:35:58:17

Bret Kugelmass

Okay.

00:35:58:20 - 00:36:23:19

Bret Kugelmass

Well, yeah. So I spent two years on just research. You know, I launched a podcast myself, Titans of Nuclear. And then we launched a second one, the Energy Impact Podcast, to really pressure test all of our assumptions, meet with all of the experts, across policy, economics, technology, industry regulations, you name it. So really wanted to, like, do our homework and understand, you know, really what the challenge was, what the right problem to solve is.

00:36:23:19 - 00:37:01:22

Bret Kugelmass

I cannot emphasize that enough. Spend as much time as you need to solve the correct problem, because if you solve the wrong problem, you could do a great job and you're going to be the only one who cares. So, you know, once it took me two years to figure out what was the right problem to solve. And while I had a suspicion that it was solving the construct ability of nuclear power plants, not to the reactor physics of nuclear power plants, which is the approach virtually every other commercial effort and government effort in this space is a is that's the route they go reinvent to the reactor.

00:37:01:24 - 00:37:25:19

Bret Kugelmass

We say reinvent the construction paradigm and leave the reactor alone. The reactor is great as it is. So that's the, that's the approach that we developed. But that wasn't sufficient for me to have sufficiently de-risked starting a business. What I also had to do, and this is what took the remaining year and a half, was to figure out why was nobody else doing it this way?

00:37:25:21 - 00:38:06:18

Bret Kugelmass

Because until I had that answer, I didn't feel comfortable that there wasn't something, some key fundamental flaw in my logic. And that took, you know, a full two years to really understand. And the answer was pretty simple. In hindsight, it's pretty simple, but very complicated to model and very complicated to prove. Initially. Essentially, what had happened was through a series of, historical events and economic forces and macroeconomic forces, really, and the way that institutions and governments and regulators and incumbents had evolved, the nuclear industry became its own worst enemy.

00:38:06:20 - 00:38:13:18

Bret Kugelmass

The nuclear industry did not actually want to make cheap nuclear power plants. They wanted to make them as expensive as possible to

00:38:13:18 - 00:38:44:11

Bret Kugelmass

sell their radiation protection services, to sell their waste clean up to sell their complex safety systems. You know, much like, you know, the TSA, a lot of safety theater, not a lot of extra safety. And so but that became the business that everyone who got into the nuclear industry, whether it be from academia or whether it be from the regulatory side or whether it be from another industry, that you know, those that expression, you can't have a man understand something that is paid not to.

00:38:44:13 - 00:39:11:02

Bret Kugelmass

Well, it's every single job in the nuclear industry is working against delivering cost effective nuclear, and instead working towards making nuclear as expensive and difficult as possible, because that's how they make money. Well, that became the answer that I needed to fully understand why the more simple approach hadn't been, tried to, to this point.

00:39:11:04 - 00:39:41:12

Christian Soschner

I think this is an important part for every entrepreneur. I think everybody at one point in time was interested in investing and entrepreneurship realizes that when everybody is already doing something like artificial intelligence these days or two years ago, blockchain, it's not the right point to start a business. But the problem with the contrarian approach that you described, in my opinion, is the question why, as you phrased it, why is nobody doing it?

00:39:41:14 - 00:40:03:24

Christian Soschner

What holds people back? Or am I really the only person who sees that? Then it's an opportunity? Or am I the only one who would be willing to try it because everybody else already found out? It's not worth it. How did you feel? About what? What happened in you that you said. Okay, it's it's an opportunity.

00:40:03:24 - 00:40:19:12

Christian Soschner

It's a real opportunity. I want to go in this direction and didn't decide to say, okay, it's, it's not worth pursuing it. What happened in your to make this decision?

00:40:19:14 - 00:40:21:05

Bret Kugelmass

Well, like I

00:40:21:05 - 00:40:43:18

Bret Kugelmass

said, I want to do something big. You know, my goal first and foremost is to effect positive change on the world. My goal is not to be more popular. And so I think so many entrepreneurs that come in to the nuclear sector, and now it's more popular than it's ever been. But there are very few entrepreneurs from the outside world coming in.

00:40:43:20 - 00:41:03:11

Bret Kugelmass

You know, five years ago, six years ago, and then, and it was very unpopular to say, hey, I'm starting a nuclear company. Even people from the nuclear industry often said, oh my God. And this is really crazy, by the way. I mean, this is truly crazy. But I interviewed all of the entrepreneurs in the nuclear sector, and all of them said nuclear is a bridge technology.

00:41:03:11 - 00:41:33:12

Bret Kugelmass

It's not the ultimate technology. Oh, we should hold hands with solar and wind. They're the better technologies. We're just trying to help out. And I'm like, you guys are that. So that was the perspective of every entrepreneur from within the nuclear industry six years ago. And then three years ago, nuclear started getting popular. But now any entrepreneur that comes in, they're only willing to be a nuclear entrepreneur if they can maintain their social status, if they can see the things that, you know, make them popular at a dinner party.

00:41:33:16 - 00:41:56:05

Bret Kugelmass

So there aren't any nuclear entrepreneurs that are, you know, out there that are willing to say, hey, like the like the issue isn't safety. It's not waste. It's not public perception. It's the boring stuff. It's like, how do you build it cost effectively? And oh, and by the way, all these people who are saying that they're making a safe reactor are actually making the whole system worse in some way, and they're scaring people.

00:41:56:05 - 00:42:09:12

Bret Kugelmass

They're not alleviating their fears. So nobody's willing to say that, that comes into the industry now, because they care too much about what other people think about them. I'm fortunate in that I just don't care.

00:42:09:14 - 00:42:26:15

Christian Soschner

I think this is a good, good starting point for creating a company, to build something lasting and great. But, how do you deal, on a daily basis with that situation? I think, when you challenge all the assumptions that other people want to live by, not everybody's happy.

00:42:26:15 - 00:42:31:04

Bret Kugelmass

You know, I piss off a lot of people. I have way more enemies and friends.

00:42:31:06 - 00:42:33:01

Christian Soschner

How do you handle this as an entrepreneur?

00:42:33:03 - 00:42:34:04

Bret Kugelmass

What do I care?

00:42:34:06 - 00:42:39:17

Bret Kugelmass

But nobody nobody's coming to kill me. So, like. Like my personal safety is not a risk. Because all I care.

00:42:39:19 - 00:42:54:12

Christian Soschner

That's, I think this is the right approach, is the right approach. You talked a couple of times about the first principle approaches and how you've implemented it. In the last energy. Can you talk a little bit deeper in that? What is the first principle approach and how do you leave it at last energy.

00:42:54:14 - 00:42:55:04

Bret Kugelmass

Yeah. So

00:42:55:04 - 00:43:15:12

Bret Kugelmass

like simpler is better. That's like number one like solve the right problem always. So if a problem is cost from the schedule, it's like only tackle construction issues don't get I mean it's like very tempting to like bring new technologies. But if you don't need it, like cut it out of the system, like get your minimum viable product up and running.

00:43:15:14 - 00:43:47:09

Bret Kugelmass

You know, satisfy the regulators. Listen, we still have to satisfy the regulators. So we still have to layer on all of these additional systems to make the regulators happy. Like, you know, we're not just going wild like cowboys. But do what? Do the bare minimum necessary to satisfy what the regulators are imposing on you, because it's already 10,000 times more restrictive than it needs to be to guarantee the public safety, you know, but, you know, just so make sure you don't kind of get into that mode of always, you know, overdoing it.

00:43:47:11 - 00:44:15:05

Bret Kugelmass

You know, one thing that we apply here is an engineering principle where it's like, if there is a a simpler solution instead of like layering on complex solutions, if you can just apply the solution that you have, but with, I'd say, an extra factor of safety and extra margin, more conservative on the equation, like do it right, add an extra, inch of steel to your pressure vessel instead of trying to have, you know, a pressure vessel that's thinner.

00:44:15:05 - 00:44:30:21

Bret Kugelmass

But then also like a special spray system that can cool it down from the outside to resist thermal stresses. Right? So it's like, that's a lot of the stuff that we do to make sure that, you know, we're delivering on this like first principles basis of just the simplest product, minimum viable product, get it out the door, show that it works.

00:44:30:21 - 00:44:40:24

Bret Kugelmass

You're already going to make so much more money if you operate in high energy markets, like over time, you can add complexity. In order to, you know, eke out those extra percentage points of

00:44:41:04 - 00:44:42:09

Bret Kugelmass

efficiency.

00:44:42:11 - 00:44:49:06

Christian Soschner

Not a motivator. I'm pleased to live by this principle.

00:44:49:08 - 00:44:49:13

Bret Kugelmass

Yeah,

00:44:49:13 - 00:44:58:05

Bret Kugelmass

that's a good question, I guess. And something that, like we still are trying to work on, we happen I, I'm

00:44:58:06 - 00:45:09:12

Bret Kugelmass

very lucky in that a lot of people that I work with are naturally self-motivated and naturally aligned with us. And maybe there's some selection bias with who finds themselves here, but how to implement it institutionally?

00:45:09:12 - 00:45:10:09

Bret Kugelmass

I don't have a

00:45:10:09 - 00:45:12:22

Bret Kugelmass

good formula for it yet.

00:45:12:24 - 00:45:34:15

Christian Soschner

Let me know when you found it. You know what I mean? I think in a in a daily practice, it means that every day employees go to the office, challenge the status quo, and then say, okay, I found a better way to do this. So it's a constant, state of change that your organization lives by. Is this, correct understanding?

00:45:34:17 - 00:45:53:04

Bret Kugelmass

So it's taught itself. Yeah. Like, you know, organizational management is complex and nuanced and in many ways more difficult than, engineering or technology. So at risk of saying something I don't mean or I'll regret later, I, I'll just and I'll just I'll just answer with it. It's it's complicated.

00:45:53:06 - 00:46:03:10

Christian Soschner

Yeah, I believe it, I believe this. Let's talk about the USB of Last Energy. What's your secret sauce that you bring to the industry?

00:46:03:12 - 00:46:05:22

Bret Kugelmass

What was that? Was that acronym that used. What was that?

00:46:05:24 - 00:46:08:00

Christian Soschner

The you are unique selling proposition.

00:46:08:02 - 00:46:08:09

Bret Kugelmass

Unique

00:46:08:09 - 00:46:10:23

Bret Kugelmass

selling proposition. Okay, okay. Well, we're gonna have to spell it out because

00:46:10:23 - 00:46:27:01

Bret Kugelmass

I don't know the zero. I. I didn't recognize that at first. I don't know if your audience, does, but. Okay. Unique selling proposition. We'll always say is that, you know, we come, we come to market with, you know, we sell electricity, we don't sell a fancy technology and try to offload that on someone else.

00:46:27:03 - 00:46:44:21

Bret Kugelmass

So we say, hey, like, we're going to put our money where our mouth is. We're going to, you know, raise the money on our dime, like we're going to build it, we're going to own it. We're going to operate it. You only pay us for the electrons that you receive, just like a utility. So it properly aligns all the incentives and all of the risk.

00:46:44:23 - 00:47:02:01

Bret Kugelmass

And this is why we've been so commercially successful to date, is because we found that product market fit where we realized the customers don't want to buy a nuclear power plant, they want to buy electricity with the characteristics that come from a nuclear power plants. Right. Great. Like that's that's our unique selling proposition. That's what we'll sell you.

00:47:02:03 - 00:47:04:12

Christian Soschner

It's great. And you do it globally.

00:47:04:14 - 00:47:15:07

Bret Kugelmass

And we do it in, in several select markets in Europe. So UK, Netherlands, Romania, Poland, these are our markets.

00:47:15:09 - 00:47:22:09

Christian Soschner

That's that's great. That's great. I think Europe is also another layer of challenge. Adding to the complexity.

00:47:22:12 - 00:47:32:23

Bret Kugelmass

Is it is it is. But you know, lots of power prices are also very high. And the rule of law is very good. So that's a, it's it's a, it's a, it's a trade off and one that we're willing to take.

00:47:33:00 - 00:47:58:10

Christian Soschner

Now, I think we need something, I don't think that wind and solar in Europe is sufficient to, tackle the challenges we have. And I think the only reliable energy source that we currently have on the market is nuclear energy, whether we like it or not, if we want to electrify an entire society and, replace all vehicles here in Europe with, electric cars, I think we need more production.

00:47:58:12 - 00:48:02:10

Bret Kugelmass

Do people actually want to do that? They say they want to do it. I do, they really want to do it?

00:48:02:10 - 00:48:04:12

Bret Kugelmass

I don't know, I don't know.

00:48:04:14 - 00:48:13:09

Christian Soschner

I mean, if you my opinion, the question is, is, is feasible. What was the thing about, do they want to do it? Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.

00:48:13:11 - 00:48:13:18

Bret Kugelmass

I don't

00:48:13:18 - 00:48:42:11

Bret Kugelmass

know, I think a lot of people, and this is maybe more philosophical in a semantics argument, but when people say that they want to do something like, if you were to actually tell them what was involved, would they still want to do it? Does that mean they actually wanted to do it to begin with, or they just wanted to say the words, I want to do it and not actually open their mind to all of the the challenges and to all of the cascading impacts on society.

00:48:42:13 - 00:48:57:18

Christian Soschner

I think the political will at this point in time here in Europe is to, let's say, to only allow electric vehicles on the market, which makes a lot of people follow, for obvious reasons.

00:48:57:24 - 00:48:58:07

Bret Kugelmass

Well,

00:48:58:07 - 00:49:19:21

Bret Kugelmass

we'll see, we'll see. Because you say it's the political will, but it's a sustained political will, because what I see is that the more that we impose the burden on society from changing their lifestyle, both from a cost perspective and infrastructure perspective, their ability to drive across the country, their ability to drive into London without paying an extra tax.

00:49:20:00 - 00:49:36:22

Bret Kugelmass

I think that we're going to start to see a lot more nationalist uprisings, and I think that political will will change very quickly. I think this, this electric vehicle utopia that you're being imagines is like a brief moment in time before the nationalists take over all of Europe.

00:49:36:24 - 00:50:09:01

Christian Soschner

I think we're on a good way towards that direction. When I look at the latest elections here in Europe, I think the underlying motivation that probably also the nationalist parties, I mean, if this power shift really happens, we'll soon discover is, we can't ruin our environment. I think this is the positive underlying, motivation behind this, European way of, electrifying the entire, logistic chain, which, my opinion is not really feasible.

00:50:09:03 - 00:50:17:05

Christian Soschner

But if we do that, and if we go really down that road and say, okay, combustion engines, eliminated, we need to nucleate the end of the day.

00:50:17:07 - 00:50:17:20

Bret Kugelmass

Yes.

00:50:17:22 - 00:50:23:20

Bret Kugelmass

Yes, yes, yes, exactly. So, I mean.

00:50:23:22 - 00:50:48:10

Christian Soschner

However, we look at this problem, I think we need more power production. Yes. And, Your company, when I found it, was quite interesting because when we looked at Crunchbase, I saw that you secured 3 million seed funding for going towards the nuclear space. And I thought 3 million is not really, sufficient for that.

00:50:48:12 - 00:51:01:02

Christian Soschner

And then I read a little bit deeper and found more sources, and I read that in practically no time. You secured over 30 billion contracts?

00:51:01:04 - 00:51:02:16

Bret Kugelmass

Yeah, 30 billion in contracts. Yeah.

00:51:02:16 - 00:51:04:16

Bret Kugelmass

That's right.

00:51:04:18 - 00:51:07:06

Christian Soschner

How did you do that? I mean, this is an amazing number.

00:51:07:08 - 00:51:09:11

Bret Kugelmass

Yeah. We aligned. Yeah.

00:51:09:12 - 00:51:12:00

Bret Kugelmass

We we we found.

00:51:12:00 - 00:51:12:08

Bret Kugelmass

Product

00:51:12:08 - 00:51:22:16

Bret Kugelmass

market fit. We realized that, customers don't want to buy nuclear technology. They want to buy electricity with the

00:51:22:16 - 00:51:40:11

Bret Kugelmass

characteristics as if it was produced from nuclear technology. And so the reason that we've been able to sign over $30 billion worth of power sales is because we're selling power, not nuclear technology. Now, of course, in order to realize that revenue, we have to go build a bunch of power plants.

00:51:40:11 - 00:51:43:24

Bret Kugelmass

But okay, that's our job. That's what we're going to do.

00:51:44:01 - 00:51:52:04

Christian Soschner

How long does it take to, to sign these contracts? From, from the start of the negotiation until the finalization?

00:51:52:06 - 00:51:56:22

Bret Kugelmass

Yeah. The, It's a

00:51:56:22 - 00:52:21:09

Bret Kugelmass

good question because we're getting better at it. So, like the, like our recent data. My skew towards a little faster, but I would say your sales cycle for any like major industrial deal is usually about two years. And, and we're getting much better at it. And we've been doing it and have started a lot of these conversations several years ago as well.

00:52:21:09 - 00:52:23:14

Bret Kugelmass

So, yeah.

00:52:23:16 - 00:52:45:13

Christian Soschner

I mean, my, my experience in the construction industry is about two decades ago when my partner at this time, she worked for, an Austrian company that was building basically power plants, not a nuclear one. And I remember that it's, 5 to 6 years. I mean, I just saw political negotiations and, this administration behind it just lengthens the process.

00:52:45:15 - 00:52:57:20

Christian Soschner

And that's why I was so positively surprised when I read that your more complex topic, attracted such a huge amount of deals in practically no time.

00:52:57:22 - 00:53:04:18

Bret Kugelmass

And it's only going to be more I mean, we want to do trillions of dollars of energy sales, and we think that's quite realistic as well.

00:53:04:20 - 00:53:07:12

Christian Soschner

What's your long term goal for last Energy?

00:53:07:14 - 00:53:24:22

Bret Kugelmass

Fundamentally transform the way that humanity produces and consumes energy. Abundant energy for all humankind. Eliminating poverty, eliminating air pollution. Clean fresh water for everyone on planet Earth.

00:53:24:24 - 00:53:25:24

Christian Soschner

That's great.

00:53:26:01 - 00:53:27:03

Bret Kugelmass

That's great.

00:53:27:05 - 00:53:31:24

Christian Soschner

That's great. So nuclear is basically just a stepping stone towards that direction.

00:53:32:01 - 00:53:40:23

Bret Kugelmass

It's it's more than a stepping stone. It is the stepping stone. It's the key enabler of the world that we want.

00:53:41:00 - 00:53:59:22

Christian Soschner

When we look into the future, let's say last energy. And I mean, Amazon started in 1994, if I remember it right, we are now in 2023. So we have, almost 30 years of, corporate history. When you look 30 years in the future of Last Energy, how will last Energy look, look.

00:53:59:24 - 00:54:13:16

Bret Kugelmass

Yeah, at that point, we have we're hoping to be producing tens of thousands of gigawatts of nuclear power and using that to fuel our ambitions for positive world change.

00:54:13:18 - 00:54:22:09

Christian Soschner

How many power plants? If you had to put it in a presentation, how many power plants, would we need for achieving that goal?

00:54:22:11 - 00:54:49:14

Bret Kugelmass

I think, it depends on the size of the power plants. So right now we make a 20 megawatt power plant. That's because it's easy to get our manufacturing supply chain up and running at that small of a size. But, over time, I'm sure we'll increase the power output. How much will increase it? It's hard to say, but then, yeah, it's just gigawatts that we want to deliver divided by, you know, amount of power per plant.

00:54:49:14 - 00:54:52:15

Bret Kugelmass

And that's how many plants that'll be. But yeah.

00:54:52:17 - 00:54:53:11

Bret Kugelmass

The.

00:54:53:13 - 00:55:06:16

Bret Kugelmass

The best way to imagine what our company will look like when we're delivering on that promise will be much more like an automotive manufacturer, much more so than a traditional construction company.

00:55:06:18 - 00:55:37:18

Christian Soschner

When we look towards the future, I think, everybody agrees that we want to have a bright future for, every human being on the planet. Clean water, healthy foods, have healthy nutrition and sufficient, electricity and that everyone can pursue their dreams. And when we look at the world today, in your opinion, what are the three biggest challenges that we need to solve today that we direct humanity towards a brighter future?

00:55:37:20 - 00:56:08:16

Bret Kugelmass

Maybe. Let me try to understand where your question is coming from, because. Oftentimes when people ask that, they're like, well, I want someone to then go do that thing, right, or I want the government to help in some way. So the the question is, is the question actually can we ask for change from other people? Because the way I always see the problem is, if you want to do something different, you have to take the responsibility yourself.

00:56:08:18 - 00:56:27:06

Bret Kugelmass

And so I don't think anyone needs to change anything. It's totally incumbent upon myself to affect the change that I want to see, and I give everyone else that freedom as well. I don't ask anything of you. If you want to do something, do something.

00:56:27:08 - 00:56:34:06

Christian Soschner

That's just, you know, it's an open question. Simple question. Basically. Yeah. With no underlying motivation.

00:56:34:08 - 00:56:35:15

Bret Kugelmass

Yeah. Yeah.

00:56:35:17 - 00:56:51:03

Christian Soschner

And but what, when people would ask for advice, from you and, say, okay, what what what should I do? What should I, what should I what should I, change my life? What would you say to them?

00:56:51:05 - 00:57:06:09

Bret Kugelmass

I don't know, like, if, like, if I have enough time to get to know that. I mean, some of my best friends, like, I could talk to them for hours and still not have good advice for them because, like, you have to really listen to people and try to understand and understand, like everyone's got a different path.

00:57:06:09 - 00:57:21:19

Bret Kugelmass

Everyone. There's no one size fits all advice, for entrepreneurship, for business, for life or anything. And so I, I hate to tell other people what to do, so, sorry, that's not a very good answer.

00:57:21:21 - 00:57:39:22

Christian Soschner

The the cycles in living all industries, there is ups and downs. I think also in your industry, if you experience the same, you have the highs and the lows. And, a few years ago, it was everything blockchain or being a differential intelligence. When you look at the energy sector, it was pretty stable a couple of decades ago.

00:57:39:22 - 00:58:00:24

Christian Soschner

And now we hear everything wind, solar energy, hydrogen, nuclear. How do you personally deal with this noise around you? Do you have a daily routine that you keep? Do you have, some, some some special exercises that keeps you motivated and, move forward?

00:58:01:01 - 00:58:09:06

Bret Kugelmass

Just drink. A lot of doctor, doctor pepper nonstop. Nonstop all day.

00:58:09:08 - 00:58:10:06

Christian Soschner

That works.

00:58:10:08 - 00:58:11:08

Bret Kugelmass

Yeah.

00:58:11:10 - 00:58:15:06

Christian Soschner

That's what is so special about doctor Pepper. If you thought so, you don't have it in Europe.

00:58:15:08 - 00:58:24:05

Bret Kugelmass

It's so sweet. It's like the best taste is, like, the best flavor. Like, I mean, like, Coke is fine, but, like, doctor Pepper is the best.

00:58:24:07 - 00:58:26:11

Christian Soschner

Do we have it in Europe? Did you find it in Europe?

00:58:26:13 - 00:58:34:20

Bret Kugelmass

I don't know, but it's like. It's like from the 1800s, I think. I think it's one of the oldest flavors. It's awesome.

00:58:34:22 - 00:58:40:15

Christian Soschner

I have to look at our shops here. The grocery stores in Europe, I think. I don't recall it, I don't remember, but I'll.

00:58:40:15 - 00:58:42:18

Bret Kugelmass

Bring you a pack next time I visit.

00:58:42:20 - 00:58:56:20

Christian Soschner

This would be great. When in Europe. Let me know. Let me know. We have a thing. Three minutes left. Is there anything open that you would like to address on this recording that we didn't talk about?

00:58:56:22 - 00:59:02:16

Bret Kugelmass

No. I mean, obviously, my antagonism towards Austrians is more for a hot take than.

00:59:02:16 - 00:59:14:11

Bret Kugelmass

For actual, for the, the actual cultural period. But, so other than, asking for forgiveness for anyone that I insulted, I think that's all.

00:59:14:13 - 00:59:34:14

Christian Soschner

I don't think you insulted anybody. But I think, I mean, if you can work on, helping people understand the benefits of nuclear power and, get rid of some misconceptions so that we can also, here in Europe, stabilize the energy production, it would be a really great thing.

00:59:34:16 - 00:59:36:14

Bret Kugelmass

Oh, and we'll do.

00:59:36:16 - 00:59:45:15

Christian Soschner

Brad, thank you very much for your time for this amazing conversation. I enjoyed it a lot. And keep pushing forward with your team and change the world.

00:59:45:17 - 00:59:47:11

Bret Kugelmass

Thank you. Great to meet you as well.

00:59:47:13 - 00:59:52:14

Christian Soschner

Have a great day. Hi.

00:59:52:16 - 01:00:25:19

Bret Kugelmass

What stayed with me from this conversation is simple. The future will not be built by repeating popular narratives. It will be built by people willing to question assumptions, define the real problem, and then commit to solving it. Bret's argument is not just that nuclear matters. It is that abundance matters. Human flourishing matters. And if the world wants more energy, more resilience, and more prosperity, then it has to start thinking more honestly about what actually works.

01:00:25:21 - 01:00:50:12

Bret Kugelmass

And that is what made this episode so valuable. If this conversation gave you a new lens on energy, technology or company building, follow the show now so you do not miss the next one. And if you know one person who should hear this episode, send it to them. Because the next big shift usually looks contrarian before it looks obvious.

01:00:50:14 - 01:00:51:24

Bret Kugelmass

See you in the next episode.