Atomic Show #330 – Joe Klecha, CNO The Nuclear Company (TNC)

The Nuclear Company (TNC) describes itself as “a fleet-scale American nuclear deployment company.”

TNC is a young, visionary company driven by what business author Jim Collins describes as a BHAG – “Big Hairy Audacious Goal” – in his best-selling book titled Built To Last. TNC’s intermediate goal is to deploy 6 large nuclear reactors in the U.S. while developing a complete platform that enables repeated projects using a design once, build many approach.

For a company that was just formed in 2023, that qualifies as an enormously audacious goal.

One of the examples Collins used for a BHAG was Boeing’s 1952 decision to build the 707 as one of the world’s first commercial jet aircraft. But at the time, Boeing was an established, profitable company whose head count had reached over 50,000 employees during WWII and that was still producing several different bombers for the Air Force, including the large, jet powered B52.

TNC’s leap seems to be substantially larger than the one that Boeing successfully made. But, with the right people forming the right teams and gathering the resources available, TNC’s goal might be possible. The Atomic Show first covered this intriguing company in August of 2024, about a month after the company exited a formative, quiet year, when Juliann Edwards, TNC’s Chief Development Officer, appeared as a guest on Atomic Show #319.

TNC summarizes its strategy as follows:

The Nuclear Company’s approach can be articulated through our four-pronged strategy:

1. Fleet-Scale Deployment: We are building at fleet scale, not project scale, enabling us to capture significant efficiency gains and cost savings, and enabling the reshoring of American industry. 
2. Broad Industry Coalition: Fleet scale requires a broad coalition of industry partners for successful project planning and execution. We build that coalition to scale.
3. Comprehensive Program Management: We synergy-capture program management applicable across existing and new deployments.
4. Public-Private Partnerships: We leverage federal, state, and local government engagement and support along with industry to re-establish a US commercial nuclear leadership position. 

For this episode of the Atomic Show, I spoke with Joe Klecha, TNC’s Chief Nuclear Officer (CNO), to learn more about how the company plans to achieve its initial BHAG while establishing the foundation for future growth.

Joe has a deep well of practical knowledge accumulated during a lengthy career as an on-site, walk-around manager. He told me how the most important job of management is to enable skilled subordinates to perform with as little friction as possible. (I’m paraphrasing here.). For a site-level, project manager that translates into ensuring that crafts people arrive on prepared work front with all of the necessary tools and documentation.

A key focus for The Nuclear Company is to avoid paper processing. Most listeners will be amazed to hear Joe talk about the wagon loads of paper that accompanied much of the work done at Vogtle 3 & 4.

We talked about the value of well crafted contracts that properly share risk among contributing entities while also establishing a system of progress payments and milestones that give all participants a shared goal. Joe told me about the exceptional team TNC is building and the way it is rapidly gathering interested and committed partners.

Joe displayed his broad reach of technical knowledge during our conversation, providing a point of view that is rarely found in audio commentary by people whose expertise is mostly based on academic research, computer aide design or computational model simulations. We talked about concrete, steel, rebar, interfaces, managing multiple work fronts, the importance of addressing worker density, ways to improve workforce productivity, evaluating sites, finding and incentivizing capable suppliers, and building contractor teams.

I’m still in the willing to be, but not yet convinced camp regarding TNC’s chances for success. Given where we are today, the chances are better than they were two years ago when the company founders were developing their BHAG. But they still have a very long road to travel and the competition is already heating up.

Avoiding ending on a down note, my conversation with Joe Klecha left me more enthusiastic than I was before about their progress and their opportunities.

Please listen to this show. It will provide a unique point of view regarding the lessons America has learned so far about building new nuclear plants in the 21st century.