Transcript of #275 Jay Yu - Nano Nuclear Technology and the Future of American Energy

J. U. Welcome to the show, man.

Thanks for having me. My pleasure. So blessed to be here.

We met at Rob Luna's event, I guess that was about a month or two ago. We were doing a speaking event there, and he's been telling me, Rob's a good friend of mine. He's been telling me about you for a long time because I've been interviewing a lot of nuclear guys. He's like, You have to check this dude out. Here you are. I'm pumped, man, to interview you.

Very happy to be here. I think my story will be different than many of your other guys. Not military background, but I would say a different background, but still being savvy and from the streets, I would say, is a key to unlocking this different path I took, I would say.

Yeah, I love stories like this. People that came from basically nothing or at least close to nothing and really made something for themselves, whether that's financially or through business or military career or whatever. It's just a There's so many people out there victimizing themselves today. It's important to me to show people that, Hey, you don't have to come from money to make money. You don't have to be a superstar athlete to be a badass. You can make shit happen.

No, that was my thesis growing up, too. I was never, I would say, sad for myself. I would see some of my friends who lived in really nice neighborhoods, and I would go to public school with them, and I'll literally be jealous, and I'll see everything. But I was never sad. I lived in a four-story walk-up on the last floor in a tenement building in New York. When you see West Side Story, the fire escapes, that's what I grew up in. It was a small three-bedroom apartment with four kids there and my parents. My mom was a seamstress. My dad was a carpenter. He actually made French doors, which was pretty cool. But he would get up, I remember, at 6: 00 AM in the morning, take the train up to the Bronx, and then he'll make these beautiful French doors. Then my mom would go to the sweatshop, essentially. I am a sweatshop baby. What that means is she would literally bring me with her because we couldn't afford dig care. Basically, she would throw me in this cardboard box. This is not a typical cardboard box. It's like a massive cardboard box that's probably been transported from China.

They throw all these kits in there, like a play So literally, it will be thrown in there, and we're all hanging out. Some of these kids don't even speak English, probably. So I don't even remember. I just remember being thrown in there, and I'm playing with some random kids. But I think what it built in me was, I recognize, I would say, business, too. So my mom would make five cents a zipper for what I'm wearing right now for some pants. I remember watching her one day, and she She was going really slow with the sewing machine, buzzing, moving it. Then these other ladies, besides her, were blasting. But I guess she was more scared. She was more, I would say, safe. I think that is almost a foreshadowing of my future where I wasn't safe. I was a risk taker. I'm a guy who goes all in. I When I asked her that question. I said, Mom, why are you going so slow and the others are going so fast? They're like, Oh, the others are making a lot of money. I'm not making as much money. I was like, Why don't you make more money?

This is when I'm three years old. I recognize at an early age, certain things like that maybe planted a seed in me for the future. I recognize that, I would say.

At an early age. I can't wait to dig in a little bit more. Before we do Phil, let me give you... Everybody gets an introduction here.

Okay. Okay.

J. U. Founder, executive chairman, and president of Nanonuclear Energy. Executive chairman and president of List Technologies, the only US origin in patented technology for laser uranium enrichment. Started your career as an analyst at Deutsche Bank on Wall Street, advocate for advanced nuclear energy and American innovation. Under your leadership, nanonuclear energy reached over 3 billion. Market capitalization and value, raised over 600 million to date, 1 billion of future financing structured, and became Wall Street's umbrella story of 2024 is the number one top IPO performer. That's fucking insane, dude. Congratulations. Thank you. You have a degree in psychology, and you've said, I'm not supposed to be here. That's right. So We're going to talk about your life story, get into all things nuclear. But Polymarket posted something pretty relevant to what we're talking about here recently. Polymarket says that there is only a 4% chance that the US grants a license for a new nuclear reactor in 2025. Do you think it's possible that it happens in 2026?

There's so many I would say, developments happening that could possibly happen. So 4%, I would say it's low. I would probably push it towards 20%, but the larger reactors that are being brought back, there's a chance that happens. But for a new company, I would say, not in the field where we're at, which is microreactors, but for maybe some of these larger ones out there that I'm not aware of.

You think there's a 20% chance that they'll approve it by the end of 2025 or in '26?

'26. No, '25, it's-Pretty much done. It's already done. But '26, there is a chance just because the current administration is being so proactive and they're advocating, and even the Secretary of Energy is saying, Under this administration, there will be a nuclear renaissance. I feel like there's so much momentum in this space, and seeing some new nuclear reactor being granted, whether it's an old one that's being brought back and given to some new players or I don't think any larger new ones will come online, but maybe an existing one that will be given to a new player, potentially.

Got you. Do you know how many reactors we have that aren't working right now?

I don't know exactly to that, but there's currently about 94 civil nuclear reactors in the US, and they bring more back online, I would say. It might be a '95, '96 soon, but that was the last number I researched. Right on. Yeah.

Right on. Well, a couple of things to knock out here real quick. Everybody gets a gift on the show.

Okay.

You make nuclear reactors I make gummy bears. Yes. I love gummy bears.

Good deal. I love gummy bears.

Then I got a Patreon account. It's a subscription account. Sure. They're the reason that I get to be here with you today. Right. One of the things I do is I offer them the opportunity to ask every guest a question. This is from a former Navy nuke guy, Stephen Casey. I'm a former US Navy nuclear power operator of eight years. What is the realistic risk associated with large-scale SMR use? We had two years of intensive training before operating a reactor. Nearly all nuclear accidents have been from a lack of training/disregarding safety protocols. Which would seem to accelerate with wide-scale SMR distribution. Recall, Churamobile, Three Mile Island, and SL1 in Idaho, a US Army reactor experiment, all of which melted down based on failure to follow proper procedures. Is this level of training for an SMR going to be sufficient to prevent an accident?

Yes, it will be. Also, we have to look at the technologies here. The technologies for small reactors or microreactors, many of them are not using liquid coolants like the big civil reactors like what Chinobyl and at Fukushima, what happened there? These reactors, the new nuclear technologies, they use a feel like TRISO, which we use at nanonuclear, where it's coded with essentially tank armor, and it passively cools. It could never explode. Training will be in a different type of level, I would say. But the safety profile is totally different. For example, we're building our Cronos MMR on the campus of the University of Illinois, and literally across the reactor is dorm rooms. To answer his question, it's a totally different ball game here, I would say, with new nuclear technologies, with microreactors. This is called the Gen 4 or the walk away safe reactors, I would call it.

Okay, that's good to know. All right, Jay, so let's get into your life story. We got into it a little bit about where you grew up. I think we got to about three years old.

Yeah, sure. I'll take it a step back. My parents are from a farm in Southern China by Hong Kong, so in the tropical weather. Basically, I came here when I was one years old. I don't even remember anything about China. I grew up on the Upper West side of New York. Why did they come here? They came here for a better life. China is not the China back I remember my dad saying to me when he was extremely poor, he would just eat rice and salt. Having chicken would be a luxury delicacy. It was really bad back then, I would say. But the China now, when he goes back, he's like, he wants to live there because he speaks the language. Over here, he never really took on English. He knows enough to get by. But because New York City, you could live in a cultural bubble. There's Chinatown. My parents literally would just go shop in Chinatown, pick up the food, see doctors there, do all their living, day-to-day living there, buying things, medicine, pharmacies, and then just bring it back to the Upper West Side. That culture didn't have to change for them.

New York has that with the Latino community, with other cultures as well. You could live in a cultural bubble. My parents really never learned full on English, even though they've been here like 40 something years. Wow. Yeah. Wow.

Your dad would go back to China today, you think?

Oh, he's been back. He loves it there. Recently, though, he's been diagnosed with early stage dementia, so he's rehabbing here and figuring things out. But yeah, he wants to live in China. He just loves it. It's in a whole new world. I mean, you go to some of these cities, they're more, I would say, technology savvy than the US. Everything is at a fingertips. No one carries cash anymore. It's happening here, obviously.

What do you think about that? A lot of people are worried about a cashless society, social credit score, all that shit. That's all going on over there.

Then you add in crypto. This whole digital renaissance, too, is happening. That hard asset, that cash, you would transact with... Merchants are fading. Everyone taps now. China has been tapping for a while. No one carries cash anymore. Anymore. And he loves it out there just because certain areas, he's lived in certain villages. It's cheap, right? So he could live like a king out there, where in Manhattan, it's so expensive with inflation, where out there it's controlled, I would say.

What do you think about that if dad wants to go live in China?

I mean, he's been traveling out there. He'll ask me for some money. He's like, Hey, Hey, son. I'm having a good time out here. You know what? When I look back at his life, too, he was top of his class in high school. Then when his teachers all said, Hey, what college are you going to? He said, I'm not going to college. My mom said, I have to work. So he picked up a trade which was carpentry. He's always been a studious person. Every single day I see him reading the paper, reading books. I felt bad for him growing up because I know his potential would have been tremendous. He could have been a scholar, but because of his circumstances, he had to pick up a trade. Now that he goes back, he feels amazing. He could be someone, I would say. I supported him on that because he put in the work to raise me. I never had a close relationship with him, I think, because of the cultural difference. My, I would say, Chinese is basically kindergarten level, so I could never argue with my parents. It's like, Stop. Or like, I'm hungry.

I could never really get into it with them.

That is fucking wild, man.

I could talk about the foods I like and things, but I could never get deep, like emotionally connected with my parents. I think that is the issue with me being Americanized. It's just I lack that understanding of their history. They would tell me certain things, and I understood parts of it, but I never understood the whole picture, I would say.

If you spend any time hunting, you already know venison is one of the cleanest proteins you can eat. It's lean, it's high in protein, and it's loaded with iron and B vitamins. Animals. No feedlots, no confinement, none of the stuff that comes with mass-produced beef. But the Axis deer on Maui are in a different category of their own. Different animal, different environment, different diet, and you can taste it. It's Cleaner, milder, far less gamey, and nutritionally impressive. Really unique meat. The problem is you can't just go out and get it. In most places, harvesting and selling wild game is heavily restricted, if is not outright illegal. That makes real Axis Venison almost impossible to find. There's one company that's figured out how to do it the right way, and that's Maui Nui. I was actually introduced to them by my friend Peter Atia, and once I saw what they were doing, it made a lot of sense. They harvest wild Axis deer on Maui, process it immediately, and ship it to the mainland frozen, all under full USDA inspection. With beef prices climbing and ranchers under pressure, I've been eating a lot more Maui Nui.

The jerky sticks, the always summer sausage, the bone broth, all great. Extremely high in protein for the calories, no added sugar, easy to work into daily life, and I feel noticeably better when I'm eating it regularly. If you're curious, check out Maui Nui. It's spelled M-A-U-I, Maui, like the island. In N-U-I, Nui, which means big. I'm telling you guys, this stuff is the real deal. Go to mauinuivenison. Com/srs right now. Would you consider yourself close Are you close with your parents?

No, of course, I'm close with my mom and my dad. But because I have to operate so many companies and my time, I try to visit him. Currently, he's in in the hospital, my dad, for the rehabbing from dementia. Also, he hurt himself recently. He is getting older, so I'm trying to visit him more, spend more time with him. He really enjoys my time When I see him. I think he'll ask me for money, and I'm like, Why? You're in the hospital. Where are you going? But I think he's giving it to the nurses. Maybe he's like, Yeah, I've scrumbed my balls or something. I don't know. But who knows? Who knows what's happening? I'm like, Why do you need money? He's like, Just give me money. Then I think his early dementia is kicking in. He'll say to me every time I'm going, he's like, Are we going to have a barbecue tomorrow? I'm like, Yeah. What do you want? You want some sweet and sour pork? You want some barbecue chicken? I just play along with some of this stuff, he says. I'm just adding to the fun. I'm making him happy. All I care about is just making the guy happy.

That's cool, man. That's cool. How did you... You grew up in the Bronx?

No, I grew up on the Upper West Side. He worked in the Bronx. I grew up on the Upper West Side. There's a movie out there called Little Manhattan, and it's about a kid who grows up pretty much in a one-mile radius That's my life. I grew up on the Upper West Side. I would say a few avenues away is Central Park. It's close to a synagogue. Then I grew up with a lot of Latinos. Early on, they would teach me curse words. I'll learn all these curse words, and we'll be at the park or playing basketball or even manhunt in the Museum of Natural History. That's a pretty cool situation. Stick ball on the street. I grew up like that typical inner-city kid life, but it got me in trouble. Those words they taught me in Spanish, I regurgitated to other Spanish kids. I got into many fights because I remember one time I said, Something about your mother is dead. It translated to something like that. The guy was like, My mom is dead. Then I was Fuck. Then he waited for me to jump me with 10 other kids. So literally, I grew up that inner-city life.

I think it built a lot of character in me. But I would never trade it now. I really enjoy living and growing up in Manhattan. A lot of people are, How do you grow up in Manhattan? It's crazy. They are residential pockets of it, like the Upper West Side, where it is residential. There's not skyscrapers everywhere.

I've always wondered what childhood would be like in Manhattan.

You can't have any guns.

That's why I don't live there.

Yeah, there you go.

But it's just a whole other world to me. I grew up out in the woods. Were you into entrepreneurship business? Is it a young age?

Yeah, I think living in Manhattan, you have that socioeconomic separation. You see just moving over one block, there's million dollar homes, condos, brownstones. You move two avenues away, it's tenement buildings, walkups, no elevators. I call railroad apartments where it's a long, narrow hall, and it's like, there's your kitchen, there's your bathroom, there's your first bedroom, and then it leads into another small bedroom. The discrepancy is always there. This is why I think there's a new mayor, because he's saying, Hey, I'm going to try to fix that discrepancy with the rich and the poor and give more of that medium sense to people where they could have a better life. I grew up in that type of situation where I see kids having all these luxuries and they could eat certain things, and I couldn't. I would ask my parents, Why can't I do that? But I realized that, look, we just didn't have it financially, right?

Yeah. Go down a little rabbit hole. I mean, you live in Manhattan, right? Yes. What is the sentiment about Bim Dami?

I think-I see a lot of people excited.

I also see a lot of people pissed.

I think initially, there's that mad rush situation with anything that happens that's new. In the New York Post, I was reading a ton of people are buying houses in Connecticut because they're trying to get out now, especially the ultra high net worth. They're just trying to move out because of the increased taxes. If you add one, two %, that makes a huge difference to some of these larger whales, I would call them. So there's this frenzy of buying houses in the surrounding tri-state area and getting away from that. But at the same time, I was in that world. I was in the world where my parents didn't have much money. I recognize why people voted for him. So people with, let's say, where I'm at now, I see why also they want to run away now because they think this is going to be too much liberal things going on. Even the police already, it's been well known that they don't have enough power anymore. People aren't scared of the police. When I grew up, we were terrified. You're smoking a joint somewhere on the corner, you're like, Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I'm going to die.

Then not only that, your parents, you come from immigrant parents, they're going to whip your ass. My mom, my dad will take it.

You were probably growing up right when Giuliani and Bernie Kerrack were cleaning the city up, right? Yeah.

Actually, I remember Giuliani when he was advocating for votes, he was out on a subway stop. I came out and he's handing out like, vote for me. No shit. I remember. I was I think I was in high school or something. But I remember all of that, too. When that all happened, New York was a different place. I remember. I think Bloomberg started that stop and frisk thing situation. Then he went back when... I think he ran for President recently, and he was like, Oh, that was wrong of me. But is it wrong? Does it make New York safer? You just have to think about this stuff.

What do you think? I mean, are you excited he's in there?

I mean, I'm always indifferent about things. I don't like the fact that there will be higher taxes potentially. But like I said, I've been on both sides, so I'm indifferent. I have to see what he accomplishes. Got you. I can't really rush to judgment right now.

Yeah, good way to be. All right, well, let's keep How did that come along with your childhood.

Sure. Yeah. So grew up on the Upper West Side, went to junior high school, Columbus Academy, which was 10 blocks away. Then went to high school, called high School for Environmental Studies. So maybe, once again, there's some type of foreshadowing there. And that was a mile away. And after graduating, I felt like, You know what? I'm I'm just going to work and go to school. That's what many, I would say, New Yorkers do. They go to school and work at the same, so they commute. They're not going away to some universities and taking out massive loans. I'd rather stay put, work at the same time, go to a city college where it's not that expensive. There's government subsidies. So that's what I did. But I took a long route. I started at one college, Barouk, I wasn't ready for college, so I left. Also, I think I just felt too poor in life. I ended up working three part-time jobs. Three jobs. Then I realized I need that paper. I need that diploma. I sucked it up. I actually ended up in community college.

You weren't a phenomenal student or anything.

Not book smart at all. I really hated school. I graduated a C minus average in psychology. The reason why I picked psychology is the easiest subject. I literally wanted to just get the fuck out, literally.

A C minus average?

C minus average. I was like, Let me get the Fuck, let me get out. I graduated and I was like, That's all I need, that piece of paper, because that's not going to determine my future. I'm going to determine my future. During that time, I would say this is when, I call it the matrix happened for me. The matrix to me is being able to figure things out and getting to where you want to get to, but doing it in a different angle, I would say, like a loophole, you could call it. I was going to school at City College in Harlem of New York and getting my C minus degree out there. Then I was working full-time at Columbia University, which is an Ivy League. Once again, that discrepancy there. What I realized when I was working at Columbia is value. Value creation. Value creation to me is, what can you do for that employer or that company to keep you or to keep promoting you? What I did at Columbia is They had this archaic financial system there, multiple systems, accounts payable, receivable, et cetera. I learned every single financial system. When Columbia restructured their departments, they put a business manager in each one.

I was about 21 years old, didn't finish college yet, so I didn't even have my bachelor's degree, but I created value for them because I knew all their systems and how to operate that. When they were restructuring, I applied for that, but the requirements was a bachelor's degree with three years of experience. I didn't have that, but I created value because I learned all their archaic systems. So they gave me a chance. They gave me the job. And my assistant actually had her master's degree. Are you serious? Yeah. So she was fucking pissed that. She was like, Who's this fucking young Asian kid is my boss now. But I became the business manager of the history department. I see you have a ton of history here of things, so I admire that. Because I created value. Then what came with that is I get to take classes for free in Ivy League. I'm like, wait, you're telling me I could be an Ivy leaker even though I'm getting a C minus average up in City College of New York and Harlem? It's only a couple of stops away, so it was close by. Then at that point, I was in charge of, I think, a dozen people in the history department.

They all reported to a 21-year-old kid, but because I created value and I knew all their archaic system. I helped the professors with their financial reporting as well because they all these massive grants. I was able to put them together, report it properly, and then also help with their travels and et cetera, expenses. That part created value. Then the next part is what I realized, too, is at CUNYs or City Colleges in New York, you get the tier two, three jobs. You get different companies recruiting these students from the tier 2, tier 3 companies. Tier 1 companies go to the Ivy Leagues. Then I said to myself, I need to become a student. The only reason? So I could get into the job database. That's what I did. This is where the matrix happened for me. I was able to convince the dean to let me in, that I'm going to take... This is after I graduated. I just I graduated my psychology degree, C minus average. He was like, You got a C minus average. I can't let you in here. I'm like, Look, I just want to take a few classes. It's not a big deal.

Then I got recommendations from the professors I worked for. They all wrote me recommendations. The dean's like, Fine. I started becoming a student. Obviously, I'm going to fail. I didn't care. I cared about the job, the tier one jobs in there. And guess where that job came from? Deutsche Bank, which is an investment bank, a 60 Wall Street in Manhattan. So I said, Okay, I'm going to apply for all these investment banking jobs. I would I can't really make it to the top three of each one, but I had no experience. And then at Deutsche Bank, the managing director, I literally said to him, Look, I'm going to work harder than anybody out there on the trading floor. I I worked full-time. I went to school full-time, so hard work was nothing new to me. I'm going to bust my ass, and I'll learn everything. It's a job. I'm going to do it every day. I'm going to get really good at it. I'll stay last here. And he basically was like, I like it. I graduated later. I was probably like 24. So most people graduate, what, 21, 22? I was 24. So it's a bit older, but more life lessons, I would say, and work experience than just coming out of college.

When you talk about the matrix, can you be a little more specific?

Yeah. So the matrix to me is figuring things out, but Doing it in a way where it's reachable. For me to get that job on Wall Street, what happened to me is I grew up in Manhattan, so I said, Where do you make money? Where's all the money coming from? Wall So how do I get there?

You figure out the goal and reverse engineer how to get there.

Exactly. You just have to figure out how to get there, but do it in a way where it's actually doable. Like the way I've done it. This is why I say I shouldn't be here, just because I figure things out. I had friends, too. For example, this was a slick thing on the resumes. They went to school four years, but they You never graduated. But the employer thinks you graduated, but they could have gone part-time for four years. They'll submit their resume. A lot of these banks at the time, I mean, maybe back then, I don't know about now, but they wouldn't even check. I think their HR departments, Oh, they have four years at this college? All right. That means he has his degree. They'll let him in. Some of my friends would get jobs, too, on Wall Street because they put four years. No shit. Yeah, I didn't do that. I did it differently, but I got my C minus average. They didn't graduate, but I did. I was there from up till 2009. This is when the big bank meltdown happened and the financial crisis. I think City Bank was a dollar a share.

Everyone was losing money. It was a recession. I left. I saw my bonuses and my pay pretty much vanished, so I had to reinvent myself.

How did you do that?

In 2009, I left. I saved up some money and I eventually started investing into startups and seeing how these startups over time were being built. I think that's where I learned how to build a company.

What startups were you interested in?

For example, it'll be very diversified. I didn't know what I was doing. I would just put small amounts of money, like 10 grand 20 grand into certain things. But the real experience I learned from that was when you lose, you don't lose the lesson. Many startups fail. Let's admit that. But mainly What I realized is the egos of the founders, also the capabilities of-The egos of the founders?

Yes. What do you mean by that?

When I say that is, founders, when they raise a certain amount of money, their heads get big. They get their 50 minutes of Fame, and they think, Oh, I made it. But to me, that's just the first step. You got to keep going. But many of these founders that I've invested in, they They had the egos. They didn't have egos before, but once they got money, it changed them, and they became bad operators. They weren't genuine with what they actually say they're going to do. I think that is one of the issues I've seen on how many of these startups fail is the egos of the founders or the executives. They won't listen anymore. They don't care about their shareholders, what they say. They're just going to do whatever they want to do. Some Some of them even commit fraud. Some of them buy cars for themselves, do things. I mean, this is how it works, right? If your intentions aren't good from inception, it's never going to be good.

What else do you look for in the founders?

I look for integrity. Their story, too, is important about their life, I would say. It It's not even about track record. It's more about their integrity and what they've gone through, like myself, and who surrounds them, too? Talking to some of their other executives. If they're like buddy-buddies, and they don't really care how you feel in the future. You could sense these things. This is where I guess I have a good knack for that. I have a good knack with meeting Seeing someone in the first five minutes, I could tell who they are. I could tell from their voice. When you meet people and you sense like they're fake, I could sense that, and I lose interest really fast with people like that. But you could sense these things. You could ask certain questions. You've been part of some agencies that interrogate things. So these subtle type of things. You said that you raised 100 grand and you put 50, but now I realized you didn't put that money in. So these little clues, You'll just talk to them over dinner or a drink, and they won't connect. These certain little lines they say to you in the beginning won't connect the second or third time you meet them.

Got you. So Founders is integrity, egos. You got to stay humble, even if you raise a lot of money or do things. I think that's why I've been successful is because I say what I'm going to do, and also I'm a genuine person. I'm probably a guy where if we do a handshake deal, I'll honor that deal. There's very few people, I think, in this world that would do that these days. Everyone cares about themselves, and I care more about the longer term than the short term.

It's like a long play.

Yes, I'm in it for the long haul. Nice. This is where also transitioning into nano, we could talk about that if you want.

I absolutely want to talk about that. The number one IPO of 2024. Yes, we're talking about nano.

I'll tell you a little bit about that, too. I don't blame a lot of the people who bet against nano, because if When you look at it from their perspective, you have this big Asian guy from New York City, public school kid, never took a company public from inception. Out of nowhere, he's building nuclear reactors? Impossible. What happened is a ton of hedge funds bet against us. They said, No way this is happening. But they don't understand my history. They don't understand I came from nothing. So I have nothing to lose. I have something to prove. I have a legacy to build. My CEO who I recruited, he went to the top boarding school in the UK. He was poor. How did he get there? He wrote his own essay to get it. His IQ was off the charts. He's a nuclear physicist, engineer, worked in nuclear subs, Minister of Defense, worked at Rolls-Royce. So he has everything. But they bet against us because they're like, This is not possible. These guys are going to do this. But they don't understand that we work till 04: 00 AM in the morning while they're all asleep, I would say.

We're grinding. We're cut from the same cloth. We're going to battle. We're warriors. And they underestimated Nana. And I think what happened is they bet against us, and our stock ran. I think we were up like, 6, 700%. We were the number one IPO performer in America, and we shocked the world. Not only that, all these institutional guys, money, banks, they started looking at us different. They're like, Wait, the people joining them and the things they're doing, there's something here because why would these former US national leaders be joining Jay and James. How is this possible? How are these generals joining these guys? Who are they? It's because when I meet them, I could do a handshake and I honor my word, and I've delivered. That is what I'm built about. Even my CEO, when I recruited him, he told me I was crazy. He said, I changed countries and industries, and you're bringing me back into nuclear? He's like, There's no money in nuclear. I said, No, I think there's a certain area in nuclear, microreactors, which is categorized as 20 megawatts or less. There's no commercial microreactor in the world. If we're able to jump in, we could make some noise there.

What I realized about nuclear physicists and engineers is they're almost like doctors where if there's a dying person in front of them, they're going to help them. But their curiosity of building something is what drives them. So he naturally said, Okay, I'll take this leap of faith with you. And ever since then, he's like, Thank you. You changed my life, and you were right. I didn't see something that you saw. But what I saw at the time is I saw solar and wind, especially many stocks. They were tapering off. They were already really high. Government subsidies have boosted them. All these countries were talking about net zero goals. By 2035, 2040, how are you going to get there without nuclear? That was my thesis. I was like, I don't get how all these countries are going to reach these net zero goals and decarbonize their countries without nuclear. Then this is where the aha moment, when I brought in my number two, we said, This is where we're going to focus on. Then I could tell you what happened next.

We've all seen it. The Department of War is operating in a world that's changing faster than ever. That's why so many guests on my show talk about the importance of continued innovation and technology in the military. But here's the problem. Working with the Department of War can be complex. For many companies, the process isn't always transparent. It's hard to know who the right stakeholders are, where the decisions are made, or how funding actually moves. Even when you get the right conversation started, you often hear the same responses. We like the technology, but funding is already allocated. Or check back next fiscal year. That leaves a lot of capable teams with strong products but no clear path forward. That's where my friends at SBIR Advisors come in. They've built a team of over 60 former acquisition officers who spent their careers inside that black box. They help you find the right buyers in the Department of War, find the money, and write winning proposals so you can get on the right contract and fast. Since 2020, they've helped small businesses like yours win over $600 million in government contracts, and they're a 100% veteran team dedicated to one thing, getting the best technology into the hands of the people who need it the most.

The warfighters. If you're serious about selling to the Department of War, go to sbiradvisors. Com. That's sbiradvisors. Com. If you mention my name, you'll get the first month free. Do you feel it that something's off? This is Propagandas as a Wealth. The Revolutionary Audio Docu-Series.

It's essential for the experiment that you continue.

Hosted by Sean Ryan. They're called PSYOPs, is now available to you for free. There's no question that it is mind control. Hear from whistleblowers.

Why have I got a letter from the CIA? Shocking insights from experts.

If you've ever wondered who's really pulling the strings, it's time to find out. Target Intelligence, PSYOP, an ironclad original, hosted by Sean Ryan.

Listen today wherever you get your podcasts. Or watch the enhanced version on YouTube at This is Ironclad.

Real quick, before we go into what happened next. You must have made a substantial amount of money through your... Were you with a VC firm or were you private?

No, I was just by myself. Yeah, I was able to... What I was really good at is picking trends. In the future. So one trend I was very heavily involved was cannabis, the rise of cannabis. In New York City, every corner has a cannabis store now, but back then, everything's illegal. So what happened here was in Canada, there was a tremendous amount of companies that were going public up in Canada. I invested in many of those companies that were pre-APO or private companies. I had that knack, I would say, of predicting that as well. Then in the meantime, I was investing into other companies, biotechs. But once again, many of them failed. But the ones that I picked, the sector-focused ones, many of them would succeed. Not all of them, but many of them would succeed. Then, for example, gold. When gold was 900 an ounce, I actually liked the price of gold at that time. Now we reached over 4,000 an ounce. But I remember I was in London and I was with a hedge fund buddy of mine, and we were in the richest area of London, which is called Mayfair. I was like, I really like it, but I'm tired of writing a check to these companies and then the executives can't execute and operate.

I was able to convince him to put a structure, a deal together. He was able to find an asset up in Canada. We raised money and took it public, and it was called Mayfair Gold. So I think right now it's still worth 300 something million. We've raised over 100 something million. Oh, shit. And there's been a tremendous amount of interest now in that. So I've always had a neck for picking, I would say, sectors. But when I turned 40 and this whole nuclear thing, I had this feeling about nuclear, I said, You know what? I'm tired of writing checks to people. I'm going to invest in myself. When I used to go with some of these company executives to, they call it non-deal road shows or deal road shows, meaning they're raising capital or they're marketing their company, I was never impressed by these guys. I would go and they'll raise all this money, and I'm like, That's it? This is what I'm up I said, I'm going to build. I think I could build the company better than these guys. My thesis was right. But it takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of human capital, connection production.

For instance, let's go back to nano. I looked up which universities in the world are top in nuclear engineering. I I flew to UC, Berkeley, and I met with the chair of the department at his favorite café on campus, and I said, I want to build a microreactor, and I'll pay you for it, but you just have to believe in me and join me. I was able to sell him on this idea. Because he's so, like I said, nuclear engineer Our suppliers are so inquisitive, they're like, Okay, we'll see. We'll see what you could do. I was able to bring the chair of that department on. Then I said, Okay, with my capital markets background, I said, You see a lot of these biotech companies, they have one drug, and if they don't make it to the FDA approval, it tanks the whole company. I wanted to diversify or hedge myself. I went to Cambridge in the UK, and I met the chair of that department, and I said, Hey, I want to build a micronecoreactor. I want to hire you. Two different designs which will be hedged in case something happens, one or the other doesn't succeed.

We put world-class technical teams together, and then I was able to raise the seed capital from the former sea level executives of UPS, the largest transportation company in the in the world. I said, Look, we want to make nuclear scalable, transportable. They said, We know transport, but they knew nothing about nuclear. What they did is they went to Morgan Stanley, and they talked to their energy desk, and they said to Morgan, Tell us everything about nuclear, small nuclear. What do you like about it? They basically helped us. They said, We're bullish on nuclear. We see great things for it coming. Small nuclear is rising. There's a lot of buzz about it. I was able to now get my seat money to pay these world-class technical guys to start designing and structuring and developing the microreactor designs. That's how I was able to get these world-class people. But once again, it took a lot of I would say human capital convincing. I think these days, what I did, people are copying now, too. I see a lot of now new nanos popping up all over the place. Every single week, there's a new nano.

Were you the first one in the space?

We were the first one to be publicly listed. Okay. So microreactors have been around for decades, but we're looking to commercialize it. Remember, there's no commercialized microreactor in the world. That was a new frontier. We were the first publicly company to be listed as a vertically integrated microreactor.

Okay. You talked about net zero and renewables and green energy and all that stuff. But what got your interest specifically in Microreactors?

Yeah. Number one, for the business side, was there was no commercial microreactor. Number two, was there's a lot of historic data around different types of microreactors. Then three, my CEO had a lot of connections also with his previous nuclear networks about that. We decided to focus on that because the use cases are way different than civil nuclear reactors. If you're able to transport and scale nuclear, think about island communities. Northern We live in communities in Canada that run on diesel. Essentially, replacing diesel generators with consistent baseload energy. Think of natural disaster relief, being to bring it in. Think about military deployment. If you think about what's happening these days, especially in Russia and the Ukraine, it's a new frontier. You have drones fighting, and how are drones powered? Energy is the X factor these days. Then you see Russia right now hitting all the energy systems in Ukraine. If you're able to bring a transportable micoreactor, you have energy in different locations. This helps democratize energy across the world, but also it helps lift humanity. If you think about Africa, Africa was a use case for us. The whole continent has no national grid. You have a lot of these remote communities.

But if you think about uplifting humanity there, there's certain areas that You have no hospitals. You could bring in a microreactor, and now you have desalination. You could build hospitals. There's so much you could do. Water. Water. All of this This is the X-Factor. This was the thesis, too, besides the net zero goals of all these countries, is lifting up humanity, being able to bring energy to the front lines of different situations. Right now, the army has a massive program. They're launching a whole microreactor program and funding that. The world is changing. Military is changing. Nano this year also won a direct to phase 2 award with the closest joint military base in DC. They want to be able to have energy off it in case something happens. They're looking at our, we call it Cronos MMR, which is micromodular reactor. We're doing a feasibility study there now, which we won that award. We're looking at certain areas on the base where we could install that for them. They're very excited about this. We're very excited about this. But that is going to be a use case for us for the military aspect as well.

Wow. I mean, did the AI race or any of that stuff-Oh, yeah. No. Put an impact into your decision as well?

Yes. I mean, we didn't know this was all going to transpire like this with AI data centers and all the big tech companies pouring in.

You didn't know this back then? I mean-So this is...

Holy shit. This was just a perfect storm. This is a rare situation where You have government backing everything. You have the giant tech companies pouring in because of AI and data centers. Then you have now also a new generation of technology that's come on that's walk away safe, that can never explode. It's just this marriage of this opportunity and time. It's just a rare situation situation. And once again, this is where the matrix happens, and I believe there's a higher power pushing that, too. And what I mean by that is there's certain things that it's almost like no coincidence that happens while I was building nano. For instance, my last name is You. And I built nano in my last office on the 38th floor. If you put that together, U38, or as commonly loan as U308, which is uranium, which is the fuel for these reactors. Then when we go public, our stock... We did an IPO at $4 a share. Our stock goes from $4 to $38. This 38 number has been following me. Then, If you know Chinese culture, we like eights, eights, eights. Eights, eights. Thirty-eight has been following me. Then Nana was able to acquire, out of bankruptcy, a leading microreactor technology that went bankrupt.

It didn't go bankrupt because of the technology. It went bankrupt because the biggest funder passed away. He was a former CIA guy. His name was Richard Helms. I I believe. I don't know where he got the money, but he funded that company like $130 something million. He passed away, and his family, I believe they didn't care about nuclear. It was an opportunity for us now. We came in, bought that technology, and it leapfrogged now to becoming one of the leaders, if not the leader in micoreactor technology in the world. It came with, guess what? 38 issued and pending patents.

Are you serious?

This is what I'm saying. There's just been so many crazy things that happened that it's unbelievable. When people attack us early on, and we were the number one IPO performer, I just put my head down and work because I know it's going to work out itself for some reason. It's so crazy Crazy. There's just been so many things that it's just unbelievable. Let me add that movie Oppenheimer. It came out. I think it won a ton of awards. I don't know if you watched this, but this is another goosebumps moment for me. I was watching it, and Oppenheimer, he helped build the first atomic bomb, right? Where did he recruit his scientists? Where did you get this from? Uc, Berkeley, and Cambridge. It gave me goosebumps. I was like, Get the fuck out of here. Oppenheimer did this? I didn't even know. I knew nothing about it. I don't even read about Oppenheimer. I'm a bomber. I just did things myself. So these are the little things that are so freaky. I'm just like, it's almost unbelievable. And then what's unbelievable is within In a year and a half, we raised, since inception, over $600 million.

We go from an unnamed group of guys and company. They're not real. They're not doing this to now being one of the leaders and now having the money to make this happen. It's not about if we're building it, it's about when now. We shocked the world. Many of these nuclear guys are now looking at us different because they're like, wow, nano is a real player now. And not only that, once again, we recruited world-class technical teams, but also former US national leaders. Our chair of our advisory board is Rick Perry, former Secretary of Energy under the last Trump administration. And then I hired the former CFO of the Department of Energy. And then I brought in a four-star general, Wesley Clark, former Supreme Ally Commander of NATO forces. Then I brought in General Terry Rubleing. He was head of the Marines in the Asian Pacific. Apparently, he is the real Top Gun, not Tom Cruise. We brought so many high-level people to the table, and everyone's just in awe, and they're shocked because we came in, and I felt confident guiding the company post-IPO because we have that grit. We just have that warrior spirit.

I think it's from the history and the upbringing I had. I mean, It's just an all-in type of mentality. I grew up with nothing. What are you doing against this? It means nothing to me. I'm just going to put my head down and build.

Damn. That is fucking impressive, man. Congratulations. Thank you. Wow. Are you guys talking about sending some of these mini-reactors up to space, too?

Oh, yeah. I mean, that's part of the whole type of new frontier. I think with SpaceX and with all these rocket companies going into space and raising tons of billions of dollars as well, One of the issues is energy. If you're able to bring a scalable nuclear reactor and a transportable one to, let's say, the moon, and that's one of the mandates, too. I think under this administration, they announced recently they want to put a reactor on the moon. They want to be the first country to do that. I mean, you're going against Russia and China, right? So they announced they want to focus on that. Our reactor design is perfectly for that. We have a design, we call it LOKI, that could go up there and be on the boom.

How many different reactors do you have?

So we have a portfolio of reactors. I call it, I would say, large, medium, and small, but the large still being small. Our large one is called Cronos. It's a 15 megawatt electric output and 45 megawatt thermal. And then we have-What does that mean? That means it could power 15 megawatt electric. I would say it could power maybe 15,000 homes. Okay. Sure. Then, LOEY is between 1-5 megawatts. Then we have our ZUS reactor, which was developed by the University of Illinois professors that I recruited. That design is, to me, it's probably the most simplest design in the world, and that is going to be under one megawatt. That is used for the military is really interested in that because that could be deployed in the front line to power the drones, to move the camps, the military bases. We have a portfolio, and they're all, I would say, called high gas temperature reactors. We keep the same type of designs and we flow it down. What that means is we also use that trisophil. So trisophil, actually, the government poured billions of dollars into R&D into it. So many of these companies now that are developing microreactors or SMRs or small modular reactors, they're all using that type of same combination, like a high gas temperature reactor with TRISO because it makes the most sense.

It seems like many of these other larger companies are also doing that as well. Remember, TRISO, it's coded with pretty much It's like ink armor. It can never explode. It just passively cools. If anything happens, there's like an auto shutdown. You shoot a rocket at it, the field doesn't explode. Again, it could crack, but they chemically interact with each other. That's why we call it walk away safe. When we acquired the technology from bankruptcy, it came with two demonstrates administration sites. One, partner with the University of Illinois. We reestablished that. And recently, we also broke ground there. We had a ceremony with the University, and they're very happy that we're to bring this project back to life. So we broke ground and we're planning to submit a construction application with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in Q1 of 2026. Wow. Yeah. So what that means is hopefully within a year, a year and a half, we'll be able to pour concrete and steel and start building the reactor. The reactor is buried on campus. Like I said, right across the street from the reactor is dorm rooms. This is why we call it walk away. You think that university would allow that situation to happen if they didn't know from their experts that this is actually safe?

This is a whole new world, a whole new nuclear technology, and people have to rewire their minds about nuclear now.

What do you think that unleashing nuclear, what's going to happen? Are we going to hit a golden age? Because everybody I've talked, you're not the only nuclear guy I've talked to. Everybody's gung-ho about it. Everybody's super gung-ho about it. It seems like this administration is getting rid of a lot of the red tape that has been holding progress in this sector back for long fucking time. Yes. First question, are you, obviously, you wouldn't be in it if you didn't think the red tape was disappearing. What is this Unleash? What is going to change in everyday Americans' lives?

I think you have to look at the whole supply chain of things. You have now AI and data centers being built. That's going to take years. It's not going to be built overnight. These are massive infrastructure Infrastructures. Amazon's pouring tens of billions of dollars into this. Meta, Google, Oracle. A lot of these players are looking at nuclear as an option. Nvidia, with Jensen Wang, he recently said also that a lot of these small reactors are going to come online with these data centers. Let's look at that whole cycle. You Energy is the X-Factor. It is the bottleneck right now. With these small reactors, you're able to now create all this data centers and AI or be a part of the situation. But you're able to do that. How is it going to impact? We're hearing it every day, how's AI going to impact our lives? You need the energy to create the AI in order to deliver it and change our lives. You have this whole cycle here. But once again, the X factor is energy. If you're able to create a scalable, factory-fabricated situation where you can mass-produce nuclear, you have that baseload energy, it's carbon-free, and then you can deploy it off-grid.

You don't have that burden on the grid anymore. You You want to build a data center? Bring it anywhere. I recently came back from speaking at the largest energy conference in the UAE in Abu Dhabi. I was approached by a company wanting to build data centers in the desert. How are you going to do that? The only way to do that is with nuclear. That is how crazy things are moving, and the world is catching onto this. You have now the Middle East very interested in this because they know oil is finite. If they want to, let's say, they want their hands around energy in the future, you're going to have to invest in nuclear. So there is a lot of interest from the Middle East right now with small reactors. The UAE just built, I believe, five of them, so nuclear reactors. So They're all coming online, too, and they're all changing their mindset. We can't just focus on oil anymore.

Wow. The Middle East is... Wow. What about... So I know an abundance of energy will jet launch artificial intelligence, but what about production costs, transportation costs? We were talking about space, all that shit. I mean, what is a numbers guy, Wall Street guy? You would have a lot more insight than I would have. But if un nuclear is truly unleashed and we have an overabundance of energy, it is my understanding that would throw us into some type of a golden age.

Yeah, great point there. I think this is why microreactors are very important, because let's say with our Cronos MMR, Every piece of it is modulized. So we could produce this in a factory, and it adheres to road weight limits. Every piece of it. And the biggest The biggest part is vessels in nuclear reactors. That's the largest piece. We're able to design this and mass produce this in a factory, like the gigawatt factory with Tesla. That is the mindset you need in order to get that golden age of nuclear, because some of these other small reactors are still really big, where you can't just mass produce every single piece. Got you. But with a microreactor, you're able to do that, and you're able to transport it. With our Cronos, it's buried. The surface of it will be a certain finite amount. Then on the bottom, we're able to connect the reactors almost like Lego blocks. Boom, boom, 15 megawatts. We can actually scale to one gigawatt if we wanted to. Right now, There's a tremendous amount of interest from AI data centers and large infrastructure companies to partner with us to co-locate some of that with our design.

Also, the resilient part of it is if one reactor dies and you have multiple, those keep going. So you never lose energy. Wow. This is blowing people's minds because now This is also great for the military as well. If you get hit by a missile or something, and it takes out one of our reactors, but you have multiple, the other ones are running still. So you're never going to lose energy. This is what you need with a lot of these data centers because you can't have any downtime like that. A lot of them are looking to co-locate. This is why you have the big tech companies investing now. I'm partnering with a lot of these companies.

Interesting. Well, Jay, let's take a quick break. Sure.

No problem.

We'll pick up right where we left off. Most doctor visits end with, You're fine, but no real data and no plan. Just guesswork while you're still dealing with the brain fog or trying to optimize performance. That's why Superpower stands out. They send a licensed professional to your home, or you visit a nearby lab for one simple jaw covering over 100 biomarkers. That goes far beyond a standard physical. Inside the app, you'll get a full breakdown of your heart, liver, thyroid, hormones, metabolism, and even environmental toxins, plus a personal personalized health plan with nutrition, lifestyle guidance, and your true biological age. It's not a one-time snapshot. Your data is tracked over time, and their on-demand clinician team helps you interpret your results. Superpower used to cost $499. Right now, it's $199 for the full experience. Other services charge $500 to $1,000 for far less data. Know your numbers this year. Make this the year you stop guessing about your health with Superpower. Not only did Superpower reduce their price to just $199, but for a limited time, our listeners get an additional $20 off with code SRS. Head to superpower. Com and use code SRS at checkout for $20 off your membership.

After you sign up, they'll ask how you heard about them. So make sure to mention this podcast to show support. Let's talk about firearms security and readiness, because most people get this wrong. If you keep a firearms for home defense, you've got a real problem. How do you keep it secure from kids or guests, but still access it instantly when seconds matter. I've tried the electronic safes. Batteries die, keys get lost, and fumbling in the dark is not an option. Stopbox is practical and built for people who want real protection without giving up speed or control. It's completely mechanical. No batteries, no keys, nothing to fail. The five-button design is built for muscle memory, so with one hand, you get fast access while keeping everyone else out. Your firearms stays secure but always ready. And that's what sold me. You shouldn't have to choose between safe storage and being prepared. I keep mine staged in different locations around the house. It's TSA compliant for travel, and it's made right here in the USA. If you carry or keep a firearms at home, this is one upgrade that actually makes sense. For a limited time, our listeners get 10% off at Stopbox when you use code SRS at checkout.

Head to stopboxusa. Com and use code SRS for 10% off your entire order. After you purchase, they will ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them our show sent you. Again, Again, that's stopboxusa. Com and use code SRS for 10% off your entire order. All right, Jay, we're back from the break. I want to get into what you're doing now with Lys technology. It looks like you're doing some type of laser enrichment with uranium, which I know nothing about. What sparked this one?

I think why I'm almost drooling at this is because, once again, I saw this in the past, but Okay, everyone right now is building these glorious reactors. To me, everyone has a Ferrari, but they have no gas for the Ferrari. This is where Lys comes in here. Lys actually stands for laser isotope separation technologies. That's why we named it Lys Technologies. In the very beginning, I wanted this technology in nano, but because it poses a proliferation and national security risk, We have to separate the companies. But in reality, we just wanted the company in nano. Every management figure in Lys has to get a queue clearance, for example. The reasoning for this is we're dealing with enrichment. And what is enrichment? I'll take you through the cycle of the fuel. You take uranium or yellow cake, which you mine, and you have to convert it into UF6, which is the gas. Then this is where enrichment comes in. The world currently uses centrifuges. This is why Putin, he controls That was about, I believe, 40% of the world's enrichment. That means he has a ton of centrifuges. The US, because the nuclear infrastructure here essentially has been atrophied, and we were the largest exporter of nuclear services and fuels back then, we're now the biggest importer because the US didn't invest into this in so many decades.

Now, with the nuclear renaissance happening, you have to build back the actual infrastructure to support these reactors. We don't have that yet. We're building there, but we don't have that yet. When I was looking at building nano, I said, Okay, one of the issues is going to be fuel and the enrichment side. So centrifuges is the second generation of enrichment. The first generation is gas diffusion. The second is centrifuges, and the third, or the Holy Grail, I call it, is laser uranium enrichment. And what that means is you're able to take a laser and excite to the isotope level for enrichment. For us, let's break this down. Civil nuclear reactors use 5% fuel, up to 5% enrichment of the fuel. Small nanoreactors go up to 10%, and SMRs, also with other microreactive, go up to 20%, and that's called HALU, H-A-L-E-U, High Assay, Low Enriched Uranium. That's up to 20%. Leu is up to 5%, Low Enriched Uranium. Then when you go beyond that, it's weapons-grade and is then considered HEU or High Enriched Uranium, which is used for, guess what? Submarines, aircraft carriers, and nuclear bombs. It's a lot of problems. Interesting. This is why we have to move List out.

It's because it poses a national security risk because technically, we could keep going to that 99%. We're not looking to do that. We're looking for only civil use of this, meaning the LEU and the HALU %, up to 20 %. So essentially in a single stage of the laser process, we could enrich to 5 %. In two stages, up to 10 % of HALU, and then we could keep going. So what happened recently is Israel and the US bombed Iran. Remember? What were they doing? Enriching. Because the US and Israel's scared they're going to reach past the 20%, and they're going to keep going. This is the same type of security profile list is going to have. What I did with this Which is early on, I engaged all the regulatory bodies in the US and said, Look, it's me, J. U, from nano. I'm not some other guy who didn't grow up in New York City. It's just me. I want to build this company, and I'm willing to hand you the keys to the laser room or whatever we're doing. We just want to build the technology. I truly believe we'll be able to do this in a way where we could scale it commercially because that's been the issue in the world is it could work in a lab, but the scalability of these lasers and for this enrichment, no one's really done before.

The history of Lys is also crazy. It could be made into a movie. Lys, the origin of this is Dr. Jeff Erkins. He's 94 years old now. He actually drives a car still. I told him, Don't drive, just stick Uber, but he doesn't even know how to get Uber. He's 94, and he has some freaky genetics and DNA. But his story dates back to World War II. He's Dutch, but he was put in to a concentration camp in Indonesia. Between 10 to 12 years old, he had to serve hard labor. He thought he was going to die. What happened next is the bomb dropped and it ended the war. What it did to that little kid is he dedicated himself to learning everything about the atom. Then guess where he went? Uc Berkeley to get his PhD. It was almost like a full circle, again, UC Berkeley Now, think of back to the future. You know the mad scientist in his garage building the car? That's what Jeff Erkins did. He built a whole test loop of the laser in his garage. The craziest thing is the US government didn't stop him. He was technically enriching small amounts of this in his garage.

There will be other nuclear experts that I've encountered that went to his garage and said, I couldn't believe the government's allowing him to do this, but also the damn thing worked. What happened next is there was a big company up in Canada. It's called Cameo. They're publicly listed as well. I think they're like 30, $40 billion company. They actually funded his technology up in Canada. This was the late '80s and early '90s. Then what happened next is for them to fund the next phase of this was going to cost a lot of money. Then Russia, the iron current fell. They had to support their economy by selling cheap and rich uranium to the world. So they decided not to continue with advancing his laser technology. So he took his lasers, all his paperwork, and put it in storage in UC Irvine, California. We took it out of storage, and Lys was created. It is the only US origin and patented technology. So this is a made in America technology. To me, it's a critical technology. It's the critical technology because, once again, it could provide the enrichment technology for the whole fuel cycle, which is needed drastically here in the US.

That's one of the bottlenecks, which is the fuel side. This is why Lys with nano is vertically integrated. This separates us from all the other reactor companies. Having our own fuel at a cheaper cost than anyone else separates us. But also it can potentially, like I said, help create fuel for aircraft carriers, Marines. We're not looking to do that, but if the government one day wants to buy us out or invest into that or we make an exception, then that could happen. If you're able to now make it cheaper, the enrichment, than any other sensor-fuge technology in the world, or make it essentially obsolete, then Russia is going to have a problem with the US. China is building more reactors right now than the whole world put together.

Are you serious? Yes.

So this is why national security... Energy is national security.

China is building more nuclear reactors.

More reactors than the whole world put together. This is why the US, and I believe the Trump administration is...

How long have they been doing that?

I would say this happened probably the last decade. I would say the last... They've been turning the corner because of the rise in technology and the digital side in China. They're now focused on energy. They see that as a bottle. Remember, Remember, the other issue recently was the critical minerals. I believe the administration got really mad because China was restricting some of the exports of the critical minerals to the US. Now the US is investing directly into these companies. Because those critical minerals are used for armor, for military use. Once again, it poses a national security risk. If we don't have critical minerals, and critical technologies like Lys to actually advance.

Do you have any idea how far behind we are?

Well, from China? I mean, this is why there's a big push for small reactors and companies like nano to help mass produce this in the future. The current administration is also bringing back online a lot of these older reactors and modernizing them as well. They're pouring billions of dollars into larger projects as well. How much is still not going to be enough. We need to continue to pour more funding and also remove the bureaucracy. That's another area where the executive orders recently help push that. It reduces timelines of the regulatory aspects. We We are moving in the right direction. There's a tremendous amount of momentum, but China is unleashing their energy through nuclear, and we need to follow.

Shit. Are you hopeful? You got to be hopeful.

Yeah, I'm very hopeful. I mean, this is why with Lys and Nana, we're very much a part of the build back of the US infrastructure in nuclear and the capabilities of the new technologies in the future. This is why we're working with military here in the US, because we see this as an issue in the future. Having energy security, sovereignty is a big issue in the US, and we need to be a part of that.

If you're doing this, Lys is going to be headquartered right out of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, correct?

Yes. We're actually bringing back those lasers and modernizing them, and then also developing our new next generation of lasers to do the enrichment. We made Oak Ridge, Tennessee, our home, which is also, if you think about it, this is where the first field came from for the Manhattan project, which is the first atomic bomb that dropped. So it was almost full circle. If you think about Jeff Erkins, he's also considered the founding father of laser enrichment. If you think about his life, he almost died in that concentration camp. The field The goal created to save his life was in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Man, that is wild, man. So now it's that full circle of his life. He's now bringing back his lasers here to demonstrate that, to create the feel that's needed for us. So once again, it's a freaky story. Also, Lys, our whole executive management team is from ASML. Asml also creates these lasers, but they're for semiconductor chips. There will be no AI in the world without ASML. And my whole laser executive team is from ASML. So if they can't do this, no one can. They're the most brilliant laser scientists I know.

We created what I call the Laser Tiger team of the best of the best in the US, and we're so pumped up. We really feel like We're going to make this happen. If you're able to create feel cheaper, faster, and more energy-efficient than Russia or any other country in the world, they're going to be looking at us. We're going to have the edge in the US now. This is why it's so important to actually backlist technologies because it could be the X factor in the future.

Where do we get all of our enriched uranium from right now?

A lot of that- Does it come from Russia?

Yes.

We were buying billions of dollars a year. They now have certain acts banning that. But with exceptions, you could still technically get it if you need it. I think that's some of the... But eventually, they want to never use Russia. But I think you still need that access. But this is why the US recently created a deal with the UK. They call it, I think, the Golden Ages deal or something, where they're looking to now focus on other countries where we could build that feel capability or to get that fuel from as well, not just Russia. But Russia, once again, controls about 40% of the world's average market. I'm sorry.

Did you just say we're looking at other countries to produce some breached uranium?

Well, we're looking to get some of that to offset that, to offset Russia, to focus on how we cannot depend on Russia for that.

Why would we do that when we have Lys being built right? Why would we even waste our time fucking around with other countries.

Exactly. This is why with Lys, next year is a pivotal moment for us because we're going to showcase that same results that Dr. Jeff Erkins produced earlier. We're going to show in this single stage, we could enrich the LEU, two stages, HALU. Once we do that, it's going to send shockwaves across the world in the US. Then once we commercialize it, it's going to be a big plus as well, because commercializing it is saying, Now we've built the business. We got approval from the Regulatory Commission. That will take also the same amount of time when all these reactors are built, all these small reactors, which is, I I'd say early 2030s, in or around then. The timing of this is in the next 5 to 4 years. This is all going to come to life. That's what we hope to happen, but we're all in on this. I think with Liz, I could become a billionaire. That is something that we definitely need in the future, and the US should We'll definitely get behind. We'll be making a lot of noise, I would say, with Lys next year because a lot of the things we're doing now are going to mature next year, and people are going to see, hopefully, the government backing us and state level, federal level.

But we were also selected as one of the six companies, domestic companies, for the LEU acquisition program, so creating fuel for the future. That's a $3. 4 billion over a decade award that only the six companies could bid for. We already got some recognition. Also, the Air Force Innovation Unit also selected us to do some feasibility studies around that as well. So, yeah, it's happening. It's happening, but in the next, I would say, year or two, we're really going to see a big a difference, and we're going to reestablish that baseline with Lys and with Dr. Jeff Erkins. The funniest thing I want to announce also is each, I would say, enrichment project has a name. I'm going to go back to Lord of the Rings now. We're going to name our project The Return of the King. Right on. We're going to bring him back. This is, once again, a US-origin technology. We could pound our chest and say, This is made in America.

Man, that's cool. That is cool. Dr. Jeff Erkins. That sounds like that would be a good interview.

Yes. Oh, he talks a little slow, but you'll love him. I'd love to meet him. Yeah, he'll talk. Sounds like he'll be around. He wrote his own book, too. It's called The Nuclear Impairative. You could actually buy it from Amazon. Right on.

I want to write that down.

The nuclear imperative. The imperative, yeah. He wrote this a long time ago. Now everything is full circle for him. We want to just create his legacy. Even His paperwork, his CAD drawings, they're so old that when paper turns brown, we have thousands of pages. I want to create a museum one day for him and to showcase that his life life's work has now changed the world and made also the US stronger than any other nation in the world. I mean, that's incredible. That is something.

Anything else to discuss when it comes to Lys?

No, we're just excited about what's going to come. There's tons of interest in this as well, like from investors. I think recently, Cathy Woods, the famous investor, ARC Invest, they wrote an article about US enrichment and that US enrichment needs to be built back faster. If not, AI is not going to be at the full capacity because you don't have the field to power the reactors. They listed five companies, and Lys was selected as one of the benefactors. Large investors are even looking at us already because they see the potential here. They see that this is going to be the next generation of technology that changes the world.

I'm excited for you.

Thank you.

I'm real excited for you. What else do you got going on?

No, those are my two, I would say babies, and I'm all in on that.

Well, you got your philanthropy.

Yes.

It sounds like that's pretty important to you.

Yeah, it's very So growing up in New York City, too, as a poor kid, I turned to sports. I played a lot of basketball, football, not the real football where you're tackling everyone, but Flag football. I was lucky because I joined organizations that supported me, that fostered me, and took me to tournaments, and paid for my uniforms. I I just want to give that back, pay it forward. I want to invest into kids and through sports and education. Teaching them about the real world, But at the same time, duplicate what was given to me when I was younger, which is paying for tournaments, uniforms. We have volleyball and basketball for inner-city kids right now. We hire coaches, we run clinics, and we throw certain events, too, to educate people as well. We donate. So, yeah, that's very important to me, just paying it forward, being blessed and humble about things. And I think that is necessary to add to the matrix, to add to the higher power above. You give back, you will receive. And this is what I live by, and this This is why I think people like doing business with me because I'm a genuine person.

I don't look for the easy way out. I'm long term, and this is why I want to create a legacy here. I'm long term in nano, long term in list, and I think this is going to help change humanity, help change the world, and give necessary energy to humanity across every aspect.

It's impressive, It's impressive.

Thank you.

Last question.

Yes.

If you could recommend three people to come on this show, who would they be?

Definitely Dr. Jeff Huygens. A movie could be created out of his life. I would also recommend my CEO, actually, of Nana, would be great. He has a very unique story as well. Then I would pick one friend of mine who also led the same journey as me, but native New Yorker. Nothing was given to him, and he would be able to come on and, when I say duplicate what I've done, but he could give you a different perspective and a different topic and category. I don't want to say his name because then he'll get gassed up right now. He'll be like, Oh, my God, I could go on this show. Those are the three I would definitely want to come on the show. Right on.

Yeah. Well, thank you. Yes. Well, Jay, love what you're doing, man. Thank you. Thank you for coming to Tennessee and doing this interview. I hope to see you again, and I wish you the best of luck.

Thank you so much for having me.

My pleasure. Cheers. No matter where you're watching the Sean Ryan Show from, if you get anything out of this at all, anything, please like, comment, and subscribe. And most importantly, share this everywhere you possibly can. And if you're feeling extra generous, head to Apple Podcasts and Spotify and leave us a review.