Nuclear landman | opinions mine
Austin, TX
Joined December 2022
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Will Howard retweeted
Building new nuclear in America is a project-delivery problem, not a technology problem. Today Elementl Power announced a preliminary agreement for a development partnership of up to $750 million built to solve it.
The partnership is with a consortium led by DS Investment Partners (DSIP), with Samsung C&T participating as a potential strategic investor. Once finalized, it would be the first private capital facility dedicated exclusively to developing multiple utility-scale U.S. nuclear projects. It would fund permitting, interconnection and long-lead procurement for up to three Elementl projects, including our 1.5 GW project in Ohio, and carry them toward final investment decision.
Development capital only works when technology risk is largely off the table. The @gvhnuclear BWRX-300 builds on decades of boiling water reactor operating experience, runs on commercially available fuel, and is already under construction at Darlington. That lets this capital do one job: make projects ready to finance and build.
Samsung C&T would bring nuclear construction experience and deep access to Korea’s supply chain and engineering bench. American trades will build these plants in Ohio and across our project communities: construction jobs now, operating careers for decades.
That’s what we mean by America’s Nuclear Prime: one repeatable model that brings development, capital and delivery together for successive waves of American nuclear construction.
There’s work ahead to finalize the partnership and deliver these plants. Grateful to DSIP and Samsung C&T, and proud of our team.
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Perks of austin is having a SpaceX electrical engineer and a robotics mechanical engineer help fix your oven
Elephant in the room in east austin:
Can’t get data / anything to load since the robotaxis rolled out
Love the product but something is going on - maybe they’re sending the camera footage through the local cell towers?
CC @robotaxi team
to all my austin deep tech / haha hidalgo homies: come check out my new show Tastemakers. It's like The Voice x Shark Tank x Kill Tony. Have a couple founders competing for $ live in Austin. @ Eberly on South Lamar at 6:30. Pull up!
luma.com/tastemakersshow
Will Howard retweeted
And to sprinkle some more Austin flavor onto Deep Tech Week, my nuke pal Will Howard (@NuclearBill1) is hosting a founder pitch comedy show.
Gotta love it, come through.
A Padel39 tourney during Austin Deep Tech Week is a vibe and a half.
Thank you @lacostejonathan @sawsan_haider @CaitlinCloud9 for bringing out the mathletes🙏🏾
Will Howard retweeted
SemiAnalysis: the value of megawatts is so high that a power plant pays for itself in 20 days of inference revenue
"As a quick reminder, the value of megawatts for end-users is skyrocketing. A power plant supporting an islanded 1GW IT datacenter typically costs ~$5B."
"In today's environment, inference API revenue can yield $100B per GW per year, at 90%+ gross margins."
"Paying 2x more money or accepting 30% lower efficiency for faster speed of deployment becomes a no-brainer."
"Said differently, Anthropic and its peers can pay back the value of a power plant in 20 days of inference revenue."
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Link to article: newsletter.semianalysis.com/…
SemiAnalysis predicts OpenAI and Anthropic may stop selling API access to their best models
"Given recent security incidents and general worries about increasingly powerful AI, it is extremely likely that frontier model usage will only become more restricted from here."
"In fact, we believe it’s plausible OpenAI/Anthropic will eventually stop offering API access entirely for their most capable models."
"Open source seems like the obvious solution to all these dependency concerns, but it’s far from a silver bullet."
"First, all the “open source” licenses are starting to become increasingly restrictive. As just one example, any “model as a service business” making over $20M a year must negotiate a separate agreement with Moonshot to serve Kimi K3."
"Second, just because a lab open sources their models today doesn’t guarantee they’ll continue doing so in the future."
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Link: open.substack.com/pub/semian…
Will Howard retweeted
NextEra has closed a DOE loan of up to $1.9B to restart the 615 MW Duane Arnold nuclear plant, shut since 2020. Target: Q1 2029, pending approvals.
DOE debt helps fund the work upfront. Google’s 25-year power purchase agreement gives NextEra contracted revenue to recover its investment. CIPCO buys the remaining output on the same terms.
Google pays the production costs associated with its power, which NextEra says won’t fall on Iowa energy customers. The loan still needs repaying; electricity prices, financing terms and responsibility for overruns weren’t disclosed.
Cybercab release today?
->Uber “flash promo” to keep up. Golden age of cheap transportation coming to austin!!
Austin is ground zero: I bet we get <$5 rides for a while cause of this. Seems obvious that competition will drive the costs down to the price of electricity + maintenance + depreciation
Will Howard retweeted
this is unacceptable. @GregAbbott_TX we need your help.
AUSTIN MAN just had his murder charge dismissed by Travis County prosecutors, three years after he killed a man in a robbery.
APD charged Christian Alba, then 17, with capital murder and set bond at $1 million.
By October the capital murder was reduced to plain murder and the bond cut to $390,000. While in jail waiting on trial, Alba and four other inmates cornered a 17-year-old in a hallway at the Del Valle jail and held up a blanket to block the guards' view while they beat him. He was charged with assault and unlawful restraint. Both cases are still pending today, almost three years later.
He bonded out in February 2024. His murder trial in September 2025 ended in a mistrial. This past May, the court removed his curfew entirely.
Then on July 4, 2026, he filled a Nike backpack with 30 boxes of Winchester .300 Blackout ammunition at the Academy Sports on Brodie Lane and walked out. Surveillance caught the ankle monitor on his leg. He was under a court order not to possess firearms, of course. An APD homicide detective recognized him on sight. Arrested July 17, out on bond 2 days later.
Yesterday prosecutors cleared the board. Both murder charges dismissed. Aggravated robbery knocked down to robbery, 7 years probation. Unauthorized use of a vehicle, 180 days.
A man is dead, and the only jail time anyone will serve for any of it is 180 days for a stolen car.
Will Howard retweeted
Movies make people fear the wrong thing
Three Mile Island produced zero deaths, a chest X-ray dose, and a 30 freeze on new American reactors.
A stuck valve and a misread gauge caused a partial meltdown on March 28, 1979. “The China Syndrome”, a movie about a cover up at a nuclear plant, released in theaters 12 days earlier, so newsrooms had a field day with this one.
While Thornburgh advised pregnant women and small children only inside a five mile radius, national coverage turned it into a regional evacuation.
Panic eased when Carter walked the control room 4 days later, but the damage was done.
Columbia’s 1990 study of 32,000 nearby residents found no significant cancer increase. Nuclear stayed one of the safest energy sources ever measured. But the movie and the headlines didn’t allow a return to normalcy.
Will Howard retweeted
Zilker Metropolitan Park and Michael Butler Park at Town Lake Metro Park on the morning of Sunday, January 25.
ALT Zilker Metropolitan Park and Michael Butler Park at Town Lake Metro Park on the morning of Sunday, January 25.
ALT Zilker Metropolitan Park and Michael Butler Park at Town Lake Metro Park on the morning of Sunday, January 25.
ALT Zilker Metropolitan Park and Michael Butler Park at Town Lake Metro Park on the morning of Sunday, January 25.
ALT Zilker Metropolitan Park and Michael Butler Park at Town Lake Metro Park on the morning of Sunday, January 25.
