Rogoway reported in early 2021 that NuScale Power, a modular nuclear reactor company spun out of Oregon State University, plans to go public as it seeks funding to build its first nuclear power plant, according to the company’s financial advisor. Founded in 2007, NuScale engineered a small, modular nuclear reactor that it says is cheaper to build and safer to operate than conventional nuclear power plants. The Portland-based company sold a majority stake in the business to Texas energy services company Fluor Corp. for $30 million in 2011.
While NuScale has raised more than $1 billion in private and government funding in the intervening years, it will need billions of dollars more to build its first plant. So Fluor has indicated it is seeking ways to raise that funding by selling a stake in the Portland company. The company’s financial advisor, Guggenheim Partners, told a nuclear power conference Thursday that NuScale has decided to go public by seeking a deal with a publicly traded investment fund, known as a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, according to the investment publication S&P Global.
It’s not clear whether funding from a SPAC deal would meet all of NuScale’s financing needs or if it plans to seek additional capital through other means. NuScale declined to comment on S&P’s report. “As we have previously stated, NuScale is in the process of evaluating strategic options to raise additional capital and accelerate the commercialization of NuScale’s groundbreaking small modular reactor technology. We have no update at this time,” Diane Hughes, the company’s communications vice president, said in an email Thursday.
NuScale is based on technology developed at Oregon State beginning in 2002. The company’s modular design, which it named VOYGR this month, is engineered to give utilities the option of building a small, relatively inexpensive plant, or to scale up with several modules to build a large facility. NuScale says its design enables plants to shut down on their own if they lose power in a disaster, which the company says makes them safer than conventional designs.
NuScale employs 450, including 23 at its Portland headquarters and nearly 300 in Corvallis. Many employees are working remotely during the pandemic.
Climate change has renewed interest in nuclear power, which generates radioactive waste but doesn’t emit carbon the way many other sources of electricity do. NuScale hopes to have its first plant at the Idaho National Laboratory operational by the end of the decade. Utilities around the world have shown interest in NuScale’s technology, which received design approval from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission last year. NuScale needs other levels of federal approval before it can build.
SPACs are publicly traded investment funds, created to merge with privately held companies as a mechanism to move them to the public market. They’ve become a popular way for businesses to begin trading on Wall Street without the expense and extensive regulatory process associated with a conventional IPO.
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