The start-up company Newcleo has raised 300 million euros from investors for new nuclear energy projects.
Newcleo wants to reduce the development and production costs for nuclear power with small, so-called fast lead-cooled reactors.
These reactors, which use a lead-bismuth alloy for heat removal and low pressure, can run on nuclear waste from conventional nuclear power plants.
Philip Pickert
Business correspondent based in London.
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Newcleo is currently planning pilot projects with 30-megawatt mini-reactors.
To this end, it has submitted several applications for building and operating permits in France and Great Britain.
They are later to be increased to 200 megawatts.
Investors include investors mainly from Italy, including the Exor holding company of the Agnelli family of industrialists.
"The appetite of the capital market is big"
Newcleo boss Stefano Buono was confident that the development would be cheaper than that of conventional nuclear power plants.
The larger lead-cooled reactors are said to cost around 1 billion euros and produce electricity more cheaply than pressurized water reactors.
France and the UK have decided to renew their aging nuclear power plant portfolio.
In addition, London is driving the development of so-called SMR small power plants (Small Modular Reactors), which the industrial group Rolls-Royce is building.
Founded in 2021, Newcleo set up a French subsidiary in early June, which is preparing to build a factory to produce mixed oxide (MOX) fuel elements.
These uranium-plutonium mixed oxides can be produced from spent fuel rods.
This means that nuclear waste is reused to generate energy.
"The appetite of the capital market is great," said Buono.
“Now is the right time to shift the nuclear energy paradigm towards new technology that can sustainably address the key concerns of our industry – cost, safety and waste.”