For decades, the promise of new nuclear power in the West has been stifled not by the technology itself, but by the “construction problem.” Massive, multi-billion dollar mega-projects plagued by schedule creep and labor shortages have made nuclear a financial non-starter for commercial project finance.
To build nuclear at scale, we need a paradigm shift.
Jake Jurewicz, CEO of Blue Energy, believes the solution lies in treating nuclear plants less like bespoke civil engineering projects and more like manufactured products. By borrowing techniques from the offshore oil and gas and LNG industries, Blue Energy is building nuclear plants as massive, prefabricated modular blocks that can be built in shipyards and barged to their final destination—a strategy Jake likens to assembling “Duplos” rather than the complex LEGO sets.
But construction efficiency is only half the battle. To de-risk the capital stack, Blue Energy is introducing a “gas-to-nuclear” strategy, where the plant begins its life as a natural gas facility before transitioning to nuclear, allowing for early revenue generation and a more attractive risk profile for institutional lenders.
In this episode, host Lara Pierpoint talks with Jake about why he thinks nuclear engineers don’t need to be reinvent the wheel, how to bring fixed-price contracting to nuclear builds, and why this hybrid approach might be the “missing middle” that finally enables commercial project debt in the nuclear sector.
Credits: Hosted by Lara Pierpoint. Produced and edited by Ross Kenyon, Anne Bailey, and Stephen Lacey. Sean Marquand is our technical director. Stephen Lacey is our executive editor.
The Green Blueprint is a co-production of Latitude Media and Trellis Climate. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you get podcasts. For more reporting on the companies featured in this show, subscribe to Latitude Media’s newsletter.
