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Last Energy, a nuclear upstart backed by an Elon Musk-linked venture capital fund, says it plans to construct 30 microreactors on a site in Texas to supply electricity to data centers across the state. The initiative, which it says could provide about 600 megawatts of electricity, would be the company’s largest project to date and help it develop a commercial pipeline in the U.S. Set on a 200-acre site Last Energy has obtained in Haskell County, in northwest Texas, the project still faces likely years of regulatory and public scrutiny. The Washington, D.C.-based company hasnt yet disclosed customers or the details of its financing, or announced a timeline for the effort. But once construction starts, the firm says it could deliver the plants within 24 months, using its modular, factory-built design. Texas is Americas undisputed energy leader, but skyrocketing population growth and data center development is forcing policymakers, customers, and energy providers to embrace new technologies, said Bret Kugelmass, founder and CEO of Last Energy. Nuclear energy is “the most effective way to meet Texas demand, but our solutionplug-and-play microreactors, designed for scalability and siting flexibilityis the best way to meet it quickly.” The plans are a response to overwhelming demand from data center developers in the state and elsewhere. U.S. tech giants are increasingly turning to nuclear to meet the growing energy demands of artificial intelligence and the data center boom, investing billions in traditional nuclear projects and an array of new ones, including fusion. Of Last Energys existing commercial agreements, which entail deploying over 80 microreactors across Europe, half are set to serve data centers. By powering data centers on-site, behind the meter, in addition to linking to the electrical utility, the plants could help sidestep the restraints and price volatility of a grid thats already stretched thin. They could also be a proving ground for an unprecedented legal gambit: in December, the company joined Texas and Utah in filing suit against the U.S. government over its nuclear regulations. The outcome of that case could speed up this and future projects in the US. Until now, Last Energy’s focus has been on signing up customers in Europe, where lighter regulations and an aversion to Russian natural gas have helped accelerate a push toward nuclear power. The firm says it has development agreements for more than 50 nuclear reactor facilities in Europe, including a $400 million project at a former coal power plant in Wales that could come online in 2027. In December, the firm received a tentative offer of $103.7 million in debt financing from the Export-Import Bank of the United States to build the first of that project’s four small modular reactors, or SMRs. The Texas plant would be the company’s first in the U.S. In Texas, surging energy demand has prompted officials to step up efforts to court the nuclear industry. Already the nation’s leader in fossil fuel production, as well as renewables and battery storage, the Lone Star State currently gets only 10% of its electricity form nuclear power. But a November study by the public utility commission, done at the behest of Gov. Greg Abbott, urged the state to deploy “a coordinated nuclear power strategy to enhance energy security and grid reliability, and identified 61 sites suitable for small modular reactors. Texas is the energy capital of America, and we are working to be No. 1 in advanced nuclear power, said Abbott in a statement. Last Energys microreactor project in Haskell County will help fulfill the states growing data center demand. Texas must become a national leader in advanced nuclear energy. By working together with industry leaders like Last Energy, we will usher in a nuclear power renaissance in the United States. With 30 of the company’s shipping-container-sized microreactors each producing 20 megawatts, the site would generate about 600 megawatts, enough electricity for about 150,000 homes on the hottest summer days. A Last Energy spokesperson said the company had initiated the process of grid connection with the state utility, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), and begun pre-application engagement with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to obtain an Early Site Permit for the site. The first reactor is estimated to cost approximately $100 million, the company says, with costs expected to drop as it iterates. Last has already built two full-scale prototypes in Texas with local manufacturing partners, and says it has secured its first full core load of low-enriched uranium fuel, scheduled to arrive in September 2026. In January it became a founding member of the Texas Nuclear Alliance, which aims to make Texas the nuclear capital of the world. The company says its also exploring projects in Utah. With the deal, Last Energy joins a number of companies that have announced plans to fuel data centers voracious electricity demands with nuclear power. Earlier last year, Amazon said it would build a hyperscale data center next to a nuclear plant in Pennsylvania. In September, Microsoft said it would pay Constellation Energy to restart a reactor at Three Mile Island that was closed in 2019. And in October, Google and SMR builder Kairos Power inked a deal for 500 megawatts of nuclear power, with the first reactor set to be delivered in 2030. Meta is also going nuclear. In December, the Facebook parent said it was asking developers to submit proposals to deliver 1 gigawatt to 4 gigawatts of reactor capacity, starting in the early 2030s, as it looks for a reliable energy source for its data centers. In January, Meta also signed four purchase agreements with Spanish renewable energy developer Zelestra to build four solar projects that can help power Metas data centers in the region, currently located in Temple and Fort Worth. The projects, with a combined capacity of 595 megawatts, will deliver electricity to the ERCOT grid, which will then power the data centers. In Texas, even four years after a deadly, storm-linked blackout, the state utility has continued to struggle to add enough capacity and flexibility to meet a surge in demand. That already includes over 340 dta centers which consume nearly 8 GW of power and make up about 9% of all Texas electricity demand; those in the Dallas area alone are expected to need an additional 43 gigawatts of power in the coming years. As with much of the state’s energy consumption, much of the electricity in those data centers is needed just to keep all those hot chips and servers cool. Smaller, ‘less scary’ reactors Last is one of a new class of nuclear firms building small-modular reactors (SMR) in ways intended to lower the cost and speed of constructing new plants while enhancing simplicity and safety features. Traditional nuclear plants are hulking installations, providing 1,000 megawatts or more but often beset by cost overruns and construction delays that can stretch to many years. The U.S.s newest fission reactors, commissioned in 2023 and 2024 in Georgia, were seven years late and more than $17 billion over budget. SMR startups like Last are attempting to use mass production techniques to bring down costs and speed construction, with reactors that are small enough to be transported by truck. Last tries to advance the technology of the conventional pressurized water reactor with a modular design, factory-built parts, and tools and expertise borrowed from the oil-and-gas industry. The company also hopes to overcome nuclear skepticism with a number of passive safety features, an underground containment system, and a futuristic design meant to look less scary. By using the pre-arranged price contracts typical to renewable projects, Last Energy also seeks to reduce financial risk and unlock private financing, avoiding the uncertainties that come with typical utility-scale nuclear plants. Under its model, the company owns and operates the reactors and sells the power to the customer under long-term contracts. “Technology from the nuclear industry, the business model from renewables, and the constructability from oil and gasthat was the founding idea behind Last Energy, Kugelmass told Fast Company in 2023. The company has raised a total of $64 million since its 2019 founding, including a $40 million Series B round last year led by the Austin-based VC Gigafund. The heavyweight fund was the first investor in Elon Musks SpaceX and its founder, Luke Nosek, now sits on both companies boards. Venture capital has shown interest in other microreactor designs, too. Last year, Aalo Atomics raised $27 million to scale up a 85-kilowatt design from a Department of Energy program, and Deep Fission, which aims to bury microreactors a mile underground, raised $4 million led by 8VC, a venture firm founded by Joe Lonsdale. Why Last Energy, Texas, and Utah sued the U.S. Before Texas, Last Energy had avoided the NRC’s pre-application process, which the agency says can help expedite NRC review. But the pre-application process itself can last years, ahead of a formal application process that can take two years or longer. More than a dozen next-gen nuclear developers have begun pre-application work for NRC review, but since December 2023, the agency has approved only three reactors: two low-power, grid-connected test reactor facilities in Tennessee, built by Kairos, and a 1-megawatt research microreactor built by Natura Resources at Abilene Christian University. The regulator approved its first SMR design in January 2023, from NuScale Power, but determined further review was needed, a process it expects to complete in June. Last Energy is also working on accelerating its regulatory journey. In December. it joined the states of Utah and Texas in suing the NRC over the 69-year-old rule that underpins nuclear reactor licensing in the U.S. The rule, the suit argues, exceeds the agencys statutory authority and creates an unreasonable burden for microreactor developers. The plaintiffs asked the Eastern District of Texas court to exempt Last Energys 20-megawatt reactor design and research reactors located in the plaintiff states from the agencys definition of nuclear utilization facilities. That designation subjects all U.S. commercial and research reactors to strict regulatory scrutiny. The suit asks the court to order NRC to develop a more flexible definition for use in future licensing. Until now, Last Energy has focused on projects abroad, in order to access alternative regulatory frameworks that incorporate a de minimis standard for nuclear power permitting, the company said in its lawsuit. Patrick White, research director at the Nuclear Innovation Alliance, told Utility Dive last month that, regardless of its merits, the lawsuit underscores the need for continued discussion around proportional regulatory requirements . . . that align with the hazards of the reactor and correspond to a safety case.
Category:
E-Commerce
Egg producers blame the bird flu outbreak for driving prices to record highs, but critics believe giant companies are taking advantage of their market dominance to profit handsomely at the expense of budget-conscious egg buyers.Advocacy groups, Democratic lawmakers and a Federal Trade Commission member are calling for a government investigation after egg prices spiked to a record average of $4.95 per dozen this month. The Trump administration did unveil a plan this week to combat bird flu, but how much that might ease egg pricesa key driver of inflationremains to be seen.“Donald Trump promised to lower food prices on ‘Day One’, but with egg prices skyrocketing out of control, he fired the workers charged with containing bird flu. Working families need relief now,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren said in a statement. What’s behind the record egg prices? The industry, and most experts, squarely blame bird flu. More than 166 million birds have been slaughtered to contain the virus. Some 30 million egg layers have been wiped out just since January, significantly disrupting egg supplies. The Department of Agriculture’s longstanding policy has been to kill entire flocks anytime the virus is found on a farm.As a result, the number of egg layers has dropped nationwide by about 12% from before the outbreak to 292 million birds, according to a February 1 USDA estimate, but another 11 million egg layers have been killed since then, so it’s likely worse. When prices spiked to $4.82 two years ago and prompted initial calls for price gouging probes, the flock was above 300 million.“This has nothing to do with anything other than bird flu. And I think to suggest anything else is a misreading of the facts and the reality,” American Egg Board President Emily Metz said.“Our farmers are in the fight of their lives, period, full stop. And they’re doing everything they can to keep these birds safe,” Metz said. “This is a supply challenge. Due to bird flu. Nothing else.”Farm Action suspects monopolistic behavior. The group that lobbies on behalf of smaller farmers, consumers, and rural communities notes that egg production is only down about 4% from last year and some 7.57 billion table eggs were produced last month, yet some consumers are still finding egg shelves empty at their local grocery stores.“Dominant egg corporations are blaming avian flu for the price hikes that we’re seeing. But while the egg supply has fallen only slightly, these companies profits have soared,” said Angela Huffman, Farm Action’s president. The Justice Department acknowledged receiving the group’s letter calling for an investigation but declined to comment on it.The fact that a jury ruled in 2023 that major egg producers used various means to limit the domestic supply of eggs to increase the price of products during the 2000s only adds to the doubts about their motives now. What do the numbers show? Retail egg prices had generally remained below $2 per dozen for years before this outbreak began. Prices have more than doubled since then, boosting profits for egg producers even as they deal with soaring costs.Most of the dominant producers are privately held companies and don’t release their results. But the biggest, Cal-Maine Foods, which supplies about 20% of the nation’s eggs, is public, and its profits increased dramatically. Cal-Maine reported a $219 million profit in the most recent quarter when its eggs sold for an average of $2.74 per dozen, up from just $1.2 million in the quarter just before this outbreak began in early 2022 when its eggs were selling for $1.37 per dozen.Sherman Miller, Cal-Maine’s president and CEO, said in reporting the numbers that higher market prices “have continued to rise this fiscal year as supply levels of shell eggs have been restricted due to recent outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza.”But he said Cal-Maine also sold significantly more eggssome 330 million dozens, up from 288 million the year beforein the quarter because demand is so strong and Cal-Maine has made a number of acquisitions. Cal-Maine also suffered few outbreaks on its farms, outside of a couple facilities in Kansas and Texas. The Mississippi-based company didn’t respond to calls from the Associated Press. What about production costs? Economists and analysts say the record egg prices aren’t a sure sign of something nefarious, and short-term profits might only last until farms get hit. Once a flock is slaughtered, it can take as long as a year to clean a farm and raise new birds to egg-laying age. The USDA pays farmers for every bird killed, but it doesn’t cover all the costs for farmers as they go without income.“The consumer, I think, will probably feel like they’re getting the rough end of the stick. But I guarantee you, the farmers that are having to depopulate the barns, they’re having a rougher time,” CoBank analyst Brian Earnest said.Inflation in the costs of feed and fuel and labor have contributed to rising egg prices, and farmers have been investing in biosecurity measures to help keep the virus away. So production costs also appear to be at an all-time high, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ producer price index.“This isn’t a case where they’re taking the price up to gouge the market. It is the price is going up through auction at wholesale. And they’re benefiting from higher prices because supplies are tight,” University of Arkansas agricultural economist Jada Thompson said. Josh Funk, AP Business Writer
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E-Commerce
After filing for bankruptcy protection and being nearly obliterated in the process, discount retail chain Big Lots is getting closer to determining the timeline for its path forward, the brand’s new owner has confirmed with Fast Company. Variety Wholesalers, the North Carolina-based retail company that is seeking to take control of hundreds of Big Lots locationsmostly in the South and Midwestnow has a tentative plan in place for the “soft openings” of many of those stores, according to a spokesperson. Although a bankruptcy filing earlier this month identified 200 locations that are expected to be transferred to Variety, not all of the stores have been assigned yet by the courts. The locations that do ultimately move forward are likely to be dark for a period of weeks or even months following the transfer of their leases as Variety determines what preparations or alterations are needed for each location. Big Lots, which had more than 800 locations before it filed for bankruptcy, has been in the process of closing stores and holding going-out-of-business sales for months. Openings expected from early April through early June Soft opening dates for the Big Lots stores that go forward under Variety Wholesalers are expected to begin in early April and go through early June, according to Jeff King, Variety’s vice president of sales and marketing, although the timeline could still change. The openings are expected to be completed in four separate “waves,” but Variety is still determining which wave will be assigned to certain stores as the bankruptcy process continues. The company said it will share the full list when it becomes available. The states with the most Big Lots locations that are expected to move forward include Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. Privately held Variety Wholesalers is the parent company of Roses, Maxway, Super 10, and other discount retail chains. Late last year, it announced plans to take over at least 200 Big Lots locations as part of a last-minute deal with Gordon Brothers, the liquidation firm that has been managing store closures. Big Lots had previously said that it would close every location.
Category:
E-Commerce
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