Ideas
Hyperscaler PPAs make advanced nuclear financeable.
Hyperscalers and data center builders are creating the conditions for a nuclear renaissance by signing 20-year PPAs around $100 per megawatt hour, something utilities could not do. This creates order books for a dozen or more reactors, provides secure offtake, makes projects financeable, and makes the data center market the most attractive return opportunity for advanced nuclear deployment, with smaller reference reactors expected online around 2028-2029 and cost reductions into the early 2030s.
Existing US nuclear capacity can expand fastest.
The nuclear fuel supply chain needs significant capacity investment because uranium conversion is highly concentrated, the sole US conversion plant is old, and much current capacity is in Russia; there are executive orders to exit Russian conversion supply by 2028, but no current alternative. This supports a buildout of Western uranium conversion, enrichment, and fuel-cycle capacity.
Factory mass production makes reactors cheap.
Erik argues that factory mass production, especially assembly-line manufacturing with robotics, is the single most important thing needed to make nuclear reactors cheaper and faster. He distinguishes true mass production from mere offsite factory fabrication and argues it will do for nuclear reactors what Henry Ford did for automobiles, eventually making nuclear energy cheaper than fossil fuels.
Lasers are future uranium enrichment technology.
Laser enrichment is emerging as a potentially more efficient next-generation uranium enrichment technology because lasers can selectively excite uranium-235 versus uranium-238, requiring fewer units. She cites General Matter's updated centrifuge work, GLE's laser separation, and Hexium's lithium-metal laser route as candidates to modernize enrichment.
Supercritical CO2 turbines boost power efficiency.
Supercritical CO2 turbine cycles can operate at higher pressures, shrink turbine equipment, and reach efficiencies around 50%, versus about 30% for conventional steam turbines. That makes them well suited to small nuclear plants, enables mass manufacturing, and can be added as bottoming cycles to existing assets to unlock another 10-20% of power generation.
Fusion power arrives by mid-2030s.
Carly expects fusion power plants to be operational in the early-to-mid 2030s, roughly when many new fission SMRs arrive, because HTS magnets, high-power lasers, and simulation have dramatically improved and fusion can avoid uranium mining, conversion, enrichment, decommissioning, and waste costs, potentially making fusion cheaper than fission.
HTS magnets and lasers enable fusion.
Fusion's acceleration is driven by enabling technologies: high-temperature superconducting magnets have shrunk magnetic fusion devices from stadium scale to house scale, while laser technology from ASML, Star Wars programs, and solid-state diode lasers has driven down the cost per watt. Companies like Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Thea Energy, Examer, and Focused Energy are examples across integrated plants and enablers.
Silicon carbide unlocks smaller power electronics.
Silicon carbide has become cheap thanks to electric vehicle demand and is now moving into power control devices, wide bandgap semiconductors, fuel cladding, and solid state transformers. Its high-voltage switching, thermal tolerance, and small device footprint are enabling lower-cost, smaller power management and grid equipment, and Carly's fund is looking at plays in this space.
Solid state transformers modernize data center grids.
Grid interconnection for data centers is a bottleneck because AI training loads can swing from 80% to 20% within seconds while the grid requires smooth demand. Solid state transformers, rack-level power management devices, and virtual power plants that aggregate demand are being developed to standardize and scale data center grid connections, reducing lead times from years to months or weeks.
Critical materials supply chains are stressed.
Upstream material production is a major opportunity because rare earth refining, mining, and magnet production are concentrated outside the US, aluminum refining largely left the US, and bringing new copper and aluminum mines online is slow. Her fund is focused on technologies that shorten these timelines for grid and manufactured products.
Geothermal drilling technologies unlock subsurface heat.
Geothermal activity is set to increase as better subsurface characterization, modeling, and drilling technology improve access to 400-degree heat closer to loads. Companies like Fervo and Quaise are working on the drilling and subsurface challenges, and there are material opportunities in drill bits and thermally conductive materials, though power density and cost still need to improve.
Industrial robotics automate dangerous physical work.
In robotics, Carly's fund focuses on non-humanoid industrial form factors used in dangerous, remote, or difficult tasks, where she sees the most penetration. Applications include shipbuilding, decommissioning, construction, and autonomous crop dusting, with companies like Pyka and Fort Robotics; she believes humanoid home robots are still five-plus years away.
This Macro Voices video, published September 03, 2026,
features Carly Anderson, Erik Townsend
discussing Advanced nuclear energy, Data center nuclear power, URA, Small modular reactors, Laser uranium enrichment, Supercritical CO2 turbines, Nuclear fusion, High-temperature superconducting magnets, High-power laser technology, Silicon carbide, Wide bandgap semiconductors, Solid-state transformers, Data center power management, REMX, COPPER, Aluminum, GEOTHERMAL ENERGY, Industrial robotics.
12 trade ideas extracted by AI with direction and confidence scoring.
Speakers:
Carly Anderson,
Erik Townsend
· Tickers:
Advanced nuclear energy,
Data center nuclear power,
URA,
Small modular reactors,
Laser uranium enrichment,
Supercritical CO2 turbines,
Nuclear fusion,
High-temperature superconducting magnets,
High-power laser technology,
Silicon carbide,
Wide bandgap semiconductors,
Solid-state transformers,
Data center power management,
REMX,
COPPER,
Aluminum,
GEOTHERMAL ENERGY,
Industrial robotics
