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U.S. Nuclear Fuel Crisis Threatens AI Boom, Says Former SpaceX Engineer
America's stalled energy production faces a new, acute threat: a complete lack of domestic uranium enrichment capacity. According to Scott Nolan, founder of General Matter and an early SpaceX engineer speaking on the Invest Like the Best podcast, this bottleneck will hit hardest in 2028 when a ban on Russian imports takes effect, directly jeopardizing the advanced nuclear reactors needed to power the AI data center boom. Nolan argues that for new reactor designs, fuel cost already makes up more than half of their power cost, and the U.S. has zero commercial suppliers. His company, General Matter, is applying the vertically integrated, fast-iteration playbook from SpaceX to rebuild this critical industrial capability, which he sees as essential not just for energy but for broader U.S. economic competitiveness against China, whose total energy production is now triple that of the U.S.The United States has lost the ability to perform a critical step in creating nuclear fuel, surrendering a capability it dominated in the 1980s and creating a vulnerability that could stall the next generation of American energy and technology. That’s the warning from Scott Nolan, founder of nuclear fuel startup General Matter and former early SpaceX engineer, who argues an imminent “nuclear fuel cliff” threatens both national security and the burgeoning artificial intelligence industry, according to an interview on Invest Like the Best. The crisis centers on uranium enrichment—the technically demanding process of refining natural uranium to higher concentrations of the fissile isotope needed for reactors. The U.S. currently imports all its enriched uranium, primarily from Russia and Europe. A congressional ban on Russian imports takes full effect in 2028, creating a hard deadline. For Nolan, this isn't just a commodity problem; it’s a direct threat to America’s economic engine. "GDP per capita versus energy consumption per capita... the R squared on it is certainly over 0.8," he noted, citing the near-perfect correlation between a nation's energy use and its prosperity. By that measure, the U.S. is stagnating: its grid capacity has been flat since the 1990s, while China's total energy production has grown to triple that of the U.S. The AI Boom Exposes a Stalled Energy Grid The explosion in demand from power-hungry AI data centers has turned an abstract energy shortfall into an immediate crisis. Hyperscalers can no longer find "stranded" power assets to tap, and projections sug...
How China is quietly gaining from US AI boom despite trade tensions
America's massive AI spending is indirectly benefiting China, despite US efforts to restrict its tech access. While Taiwan and South Korea lead in advanced chips, China gains from its role in ...
Maine Aims to Pause AI Data Centers. 11 Other States Tried and Failed ...
Maine's AI data center moratorium bill could halt construction until 2027. 11 other states tried to address concerns over AI infrastructure growth.
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