Bret Kugelmass, Founder and CEO of Last Energy

Bret Kugelmass, the founder and CEO of Last Energy, has a bold vision: To be the first company to bring a small modular nuclear reactor online in the United States. And, as one of the fastest growing companies in this field, it’s working hard to make this vision a reality. The company currently has commercial agreements for its reactors, many of which will be used at data centers. This summer, Last Energy announced a new series B funding round, along with news that it was exploring how micro nuclear reactors may be useful at NATO bases.

What is the single most important action you think the public, or a specific company or government (other than your own), needs to take in the next year to advance the climate agenda?

The most essential step we can take to progress climate action is to establish and participate in innovation sandboxes. These would be environments where new technologies can be developed and tested without facing excessive regulations and bureaucratic hurdles. Governments and industry already use a similar model with special economic zones. Setting up initiatives that remove barriers to emerging energy technologies, including micro-nuclear, would provide a catalyst to unlock climate innovation in the near term.

What’s the most important climate legislation that could pass in the next year?

Permitting reform would undoubtedly be the best legislation governments could pass to jumpstart the delivery of clean energy infrastructure. Legislation that scales permitting requirements to the size and risk of projects—applying a principle of proportionality—would significantly accelerate the deployment of clean energy on a large scale.

If you could stand up and talk to world leaders at the next U.N. climate conference, what would you say?

I’d emphasize to world leaders that addressing climate change at the expense of creating energy abundance would unequivocally cause more harm than good. Energy access is a prerequisite for productivity, prosperity, and the foundational health of global civilization. It’s a misconception to believe that sustainability and growth are mutually exclusive, because nuclear energy enables both. My vision is a hundredfold increase in nuclear power generation, which would decouple the historical negative externalities of energy production from a desired surge in energy access. More and more world leaders are coming to this realization, but my goal is to establish a truly global consensus on the unique promise of nuclear power.