075 Steven Zhang, Nuclear is Clean Energy Columbia

Steven Zhang (00:00)
Yeah, we've got great help.

and it's very much a rewarding process. think most people in nuclear have very different backgrounds. mean, last year I remember...

During the panel at Texas Nuclear Summit, one of the panelists asked on stage, how many of you thought about working in nuclear when you're in high school or in college? The entire room of 400 people, are only a couple raised their hand and everybody would talk to.

they really have like a vastly variety different backgrounds. So it's surprisingly a very inclusive and welcoming environment that we really hope that more people can understand and be part of it.

Mark Hinaman (01:56)
Welcome to another episode of the Fire to Fission podcast, where we talk about energy dense fuels and how they can better human lives. My name is Mark Hyneman and today I'm joined by Stephen Zang. Stephen's a political science student at Columbia University, but also helped co-found the second chapter of Nuclear is Clean Energy Club, the NICE club, right? Is it NICE club or just NICE or what? do you guys describe this? Just NICE.

Steven Zhang (02:19)
Yeah. We call ourselves just like nice Columbia. Yeah.

Yeah.

Mark Hinaman (02:25)
Nice

Columbia. Sweet. Stephen, I'm stoked to get to talk to you today.

Steven Zhang (02:30)
I'm very excited

to be talking to you as well.

Mark Hinaman (02:33)
Yeah, he just reminded me that we met last year at the Texas Nuclear Alliances inaugural, like annual meeting, right? Or the summit, Texas Nuclear Summit. So yeah, it was great. So Stephen, give us a little bit of background on yourself before you jump into nice and kind of all the things that you guys are doing. So you're a student at Columbia, what else? Yeah.

Steven Zhang (02:43)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was great.

Sure. Basically, I started Columbia as a political science major. I initially with the, I knew that I want to do something energy transition. So the route I had envisioned for myself was law school because energy transition is very much policy heavy. And I want to do something like on that side. So with ⁓

the congressional internship and Columbia Law School like research assistant. But then by very serendipitous encounter with ⁓ other people at a Nuclear New York event, we sort of just, why don't we just start nuclear club? And yeah, with the help of our

a friend Charlie who connected us to Ryan Pickering. We managed to do it and the club right now is very much vibrant. We have grown a lot over like just like less than one year. So yeah, I'm happy to do a little bit more introduction of myself.

I'm now focusing more on the financing side of nuclear and previous experiences, also on commodity side. So kind of random, but I do see a huge confluence in these spaces. I'm happy to delve deeper in there.

Mark Hinaman (04:19)
We've got

a lot to talk about. Talk about it. I'm excited. Before we get into anything else for those that are watching this on video, I have to ask what is this background? Is this a fake background? Are you actually in this room? You've got this beautiful room behind you with a spiral staircase.

Steven Zhang (04:36)
yeah, so it's like a like resident lounge in my apartment building. ⁓ Nice. ⁓ Yeah, yeah, no, I was really happy to stay here.

Mark Hinaman (04:39)
Nice. It's amazing. I'm jealous. Yeah.

For those just listening, yeah, it's got a spiral staircase, patio, balcony, ⁓ beautiful twinkly lights, portal windows. It looks like an awesome place to hang out. I'm jealous. ⁓ Very cosmopolitan. ⁓

Steven Zhang (05:01)
I don't know, you're more than welcome to hang out here. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're more than welcome to

hang out here whenever you're in New York.

Mark Hinaman (05:10)
Okay, so your background was commodities. What do you mean by that? like you're a student, are you doing your bachelor's in political science at Columbia? Okay, and you were studying commodities first, like before studying more about nuclear?

Steven Zhang (05:20)
Yes, yes, yes, I'm a Nagora student. ⁓ I sort of fell ⁓

into commodities. I was just catching up with friends last Christmas, during Christmas, and it just so happens that one is a buyer for gold bullion and the other seller, and I'm like...

why don't I just like start the conversations. So it's like a very niche part of commodities trading. It's like physical commodities trading and not even on the trading floors. But yeah. ⁓

Mark Hinaman (05:53)
of like people at a

pawn shop, like, let me sell you my gold watch.

Steven Zhang (06:01)
Yeah, just like, code bully and like, if I have to say, like code bars.

Mark Hinaman (06:03)
Okay.

Yeah, yeah,

right. One of my favorite things to ask, like, how much gold do you have? That's fun. I have no gold. Do you have a favorite commodity to study and think about?

Steven Zhang (06:15)
I don't have anything. ⁓

Right now it's very much like uranium and a lot of critical minerals ⁓ naturally. Well, uranium is a form of commodities and uranium pricing is very interesting because it's not like traded on the public market. It's all done privately.

Mark Hinaman (06:26)
Okay, how come?

Yeah.

Steven Zhang (06:41)
Following that and at the same time critical minerals including rare earth, know, they're powering all of the innovations in basically all of the tech spaces that we care about and yeah following that as well and I have friends who develop like a really Thorough map of

come out is ⁓ well like minerals reserve in some places in the world and yeah they're they're helping developing that.

Mark Hinaman (07:09)
When you say that uranium is not like trading on a public exchange, what does that mean? Like these are all private contracts, like business to business. And how do we know like, I mean, there's a posted price like dollar per pound of uranium. How do we then know that like what the current trading prices? Are these published somewhere and then on the, do you know?

Steven Zhang (07:16)
Yeah.

Yeah, can.

Yeah, ⁓ so with the Canadian, I typically just go on the Canadian uranium trader like the Camco one and they update that. Yeah.

Mark Hinaman (07:37)
So,

Cameco, one of the largest private companies in world, then, publishing their data. How much did they just recently sell uranium for? Okay. That would make sense. Yeah, that they make that available, probably, for their customers. So, I didn't know that. Okay. So, tell me about NICE, Columbia.

Steven Zhang (07:58)
Yes, very much a passion project at the start, which means all of our founding board members are incredibly driven. ⁓ Much of what we've done in the past year, we're just entirely contributed through their efforts. Well, Nice Columbia is a club at Columbia. We recruit from all schools at Columbia. So it's a very much like inter-school.

collaborative effort and basically we empower like any students who are interested or already in nuclear space to be the next generation leaders in this space.

Mark Hinaman (08:37)
Nice. Literally nice, right? ⁓ Where, how often do you guys meet? What kind of events do put on? Give me some color. Yeah.

Steven Zhang (08:41)
Exactly.

Yeah, no, very good questions. So we meet like bi-weekly and but our board meetings are every week. Events we put on, we hosted this

really interesting nuclear fuel cycle event with Jean-Paul Pellaire from Urano and the nuclear development person from Urano who apparently from the news recently they just got licensed to enrich helium which is very up to like 10 percent so I guess all the SMR companies they have been waiting for that and that was actually a very

contentious point during the panel that we hosted that there wasn't any sort of clear guidelines or regulations and that definitely posed like a risk factor for anyone who are investing in this or looking at it. So I'm glad over the past year everything has been happening super fast.

Mark Hinaman (09:46)
Yeah. So you guys meet bi-weekly. Is that two times a week or is that every other week?

Steven Zhang (09:51)
every other week.

Mark Hinaman (09:53)
Okay, nice. And it's like educational events, you get speakers in, like what.

Steven Zhang (09:58)
Yeah,

yeah. So mostly have been panel forums. We also co-hosted with ⁓ CJEP, so Columbia's Center for Global Energy Policy, which is a leading think tank in energy policy. And we hosted that in energy event at Accenture, actually.

And other than that, we co-sponsored the NEI's after party for the financing summit that hosted, I think, in February. This past climate week, we just hosted this massive

nuclear symposium with nuclear new york and our sponsors are incredible from like everybody you know from nuclear including nano and prophesying like you name it ⁓ nice

Mark Hinaman (10:44)
Nice. I'm going keep saying nice, yeah.

That's cool, man. How do you guys pick speakers if somebody's listening and they want to be a speaker or they want to reach out or try to offer up speakers? What's that process look like?

Steven Zhang (11:04)
Yeah, it's very much theme based. So with like more topic based, we pick out speakers who are like who are professionals like years deep in the space and forming these connections between universities, students and professionals to basically fast track them and updating them everything that what they're doing. Because my belief that like the best form of learning is always in practice and

Right now, a lot of our members are actually working in nuclear space. So one of our members, Sandra Miller, is actually taking a gap semester and working full-time at Valor. And another member, Richard Feldman, he...

interned at Decisive Point, which is a venture capital firm investing in nuclear energy, actually. One of their portfolio companies is Standard Nuclear, and now he's like their financing intern. I can even talk about like more people, like Hunter Dare, and like, yeah, everyone's doing incredible work. And like I said, everything happened within like the last, not even a year.

Mark Hinaman (11:56)
You

So sounds like if you want to a job in nuclear and you're at Columbia, then you join the nice club or the nice Columbia. then people are like, yeah, you should go talk to these guys.

Steven Zhang (12:11)
Yeah.

That

seems like a continuous theme, yes.

Mark Hinaman (12:19)
Is that unique to just the nice club or how does New York view the energy industry? the city more broadly, what are the vibes in New York City about energy and nuclear energy?

Steven Zhang (12:33)
I think we have to broaden a little bit to like New York State. ⁓

Mark Hinaman (12:36)
Sure. Well, I don't know. The city

is very different from the rest of the state.

Steven Zhang (12:40)
Yeah, so the city, you know, can't like build a power plant in the city. Like the cost would be just insane. Like everybody kills for a piece of real estate in New York. But on campus, I think a lot of students that were really taking an educated perspective on nuclear in a sense that, you know, our first contact with nuclear is like rather negative and...

But through the education effort, we have to recognize all of the benefits that nuclear has been bringing to us. And we're continuing discovering new ways that nuclear is doing, including ⁓ isotopes in medical treatments and diagnosis. So yeah.

Mark Hinaman (13:21)
Yeah.

Yeah. So broadened beyond, mean, it's funny. So they like, yeah, build a nuclear power plant in New York, but you can shut one down from New York as evidenced by like Indian Point, right?

Steven Zhang (13:35)
Yeah, well, that happened. Upstate are... Yes, yes. I mean, similar things with a lot of power plants that are shut down, right? I mean, if you look at Germany, they even go with...

Mark Hinaman (13:36)
That happens, we're working past that. Like that wasn't my choice.

⁓

Steven Zhang (13:56)
I bring them up, like they're one extreme from the PTSD of World War II. But the good thing is that I think 18 % of the United States energy is still powered by nuclear power plants. So we have like pretty decent amount of operators and

people that are working there. Yeah. New York State specifically, we actually got Dorian Harris from NYSERDA to deliver a keynote speech and the governor, Hohkoh, she announced this nuclear plant plan and...

Mark Hinaman (14:29)
Oh yeah, that was kind of controversial. She

was like, we're gonna do it. I liked it.

Steven Zhang (14:34)
I mean, it's also just,

yeah, it's just also taking a very practical approach

energy, right? Like we're not talking about exclusively nuclear or exclusively wind or solar or any other form, coal, like oil and gas. It's very much the energy mix that we're looking for and every form of energy has their own advantages. With nuclear, mean, I had to repeat all of the benefits, but so far

powering a lot of, it's been powered by a lot of the data center booms and AI development. But at the same time, very much with small modular reactors and micro modular reactors, you can extend that to a lot of places that are.

not able to deploy wind or solar, but needs energy. They're very energy insecure. think CJAP published a report saying that 35 % of the US is still experiencing that. So whether that's from hyperscaler perspective or just grid perspective or energy security perspective, yeah, there are every right reason to have nuclear.

Mark Hinaman (15:46)
Are you from New York or did you move there for school?

Steven Zhang (15:50)
Yeah, actually moved here from school. ⁓ Before New York, I was in California and my family's kind of everywhere. Milan, China, Hong Kong, Auckland, New Zealand, Singapore. Yeah.

Mark Hinaman (16:00)
It's nice, worldly. But I like this place. It's Auckland's pretty cool. ⁓

Steven Zhang (16:06)
Well, it's

very windy and one of the reasons New Zealand is very anti-nuclear is they don't need it.

Mark Hinaman (16:13)
Yeah.

I think nuclear in New Zealand would be awesome. It'd be perfect. It doesn't take up much land mass. Yeah, right? That'd be spot on. Cool. OK, so you mentioned started focused on studying commodities, but more interested in finance. How come? Talk to me about that.

Steven Zhang (16:20)
I couldn't agree more.

So

yeah, so actually, like, commodities sort of just happened, like, right in the middle of my nuclear journey. I got in touch with more venture capital investors and more, like, bigger infrastructure investors who have been very active in investing in nuclear space and, like, with what we see in the past, like, two to three years.

And especially with ⁓ all of the investors investing in AI and data centers and their attitude to investing in nuclear has shifted drastically. And yes, I got in touch with that side and project financing. And yeah.

how to finance a nuclear power plant. That's all I'm doing right now.

Mark Hinaman (17:22)
How do you do it? All right. ⁓

Steven Zhang (17:25)
With ⁓ a

lot goes there, yes. Very good question. The one I'm trying to figure out is traditional nuclear power plants. I'm looking at like Apollo, they invested 4.5 billion into the... ⁓

like half built a plant in England. think it's called Hinkley Point. ⁓ from a GP at a VC, I have no way of verifying that, but apparently Black Rock is very much...

Mark Hinaman (17:49)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Steven Zhang (18:02)
on top of that in the sense that they want to provide 75 % of the construction cost of nuclear power plant from the private side as a convertible debt. that's just a huge commitment for a traditional firm to go drastically forward on that. And with me,

Mark Hinaman (18:24)
The Apollo was six billion

U.S. four and a half billion pounds. And Inquity Point sees. Yeah.

Steven Zhang (18:30)
Yeah.

Yeah.

And for me, I'm sort of fortunate enough to have a lot of friends already in finance. And through developing those relationships, I just realized that there's a massive gap between.

private investments, I'm not talking about traditional infrastructure funds, I'm talking about family offices. And I'm actually, I've actually been kind of brainwashing all of the family offices I know, and one of them, actually quite a few of them got on board.

Mark Hinaman (19:06)
Not brainwashing,

but showing them the light. ⁓ Guys, is good opportunity. Consider investing. It's good, stable, long-term cash flows.

Steven Zhang (19:09)
I mean, whatever you call it, but...

Well, exactly. With them, it's just giving them enough reasons for them to take a look at it and actually take it seriously as an asset. Because traditionally, how can a family office invest in a nuclear power plant? There's no way for that. And utilities would not even look at family offices for that.

Mark Hinaman (19:39)
Why

so why not? guess what? And what do mean by like there's no way that a family office could invest?

Steven Zhang (19:44)
Well, traditionally, they're just not looking at it for quite a few reasons. Nuclear power plants are very capital intensive. It's probably going to rule out 80 % of the family offices on the planet. ⁓

Mark Hinaman (19:56)
like minimum investment

threshold. It's not like if you've got like, you know, 50 grand sitting around or a million bucks sitting around that they'd do like, yeah, sure, throw it in, you know, like there's this VC venture around, no problem. Like minimum investments, like it has a billion associated with it, right?

Steven Zhang (20:10)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, it always starts with a B. But interestingly, Deloitte, closer to the end of last year, they published a report saying that family office space, they would grow by like 75 % by 2030. And that's...

compared to like 2019. that even more drastic numbers, there's another report coming from, I think it's a Surili Associates, if I'm not mistaken, that by 2048, we have,

up to $124 trillion of wealth transfer to Millenniums and Gen X who are younger. from what we observe is that they often are taking a more aggressive approach in investing and ⁓ more open-minded. And on top of that,

apparently 15 % of the family offices will be run by women. And combining those two factors, you can really see that value-based investments and more aggressive approach is just going to be the theme that will happen. So how to unlock that capital is very much what I'm trying to do.

and giving them the opportunity to invest. Because with family offices, typically there are like two types that will invest in like a nuclear power plant. One would be if they're younger, if they're more aggressive, they already invested data centers in...

AI, which is 85 % of family offices actually from a report done by Goldman Sachs. But especially with data, like family offices already invested in AI infrastructure, like data centers. They are definitely like welcoming idea of looking at your product plan because that's all the hyperscalers want.

and as an investor they have to like care about it. Another type of family which is even more interesting and can meaningfully contribute.

to these massive $20 billion projects are actually heritage families. So they're like Indian family offices that are like 10 generations old. And what they care about, their mandate is very much different from, let's say,

family office that's second gen or third gen who care about liquidity you know investing in secondary markets so with with heritage families they very much care like they really take a long-term view because their mandates are just you know they're they

there are extend more than just liquidity and they want generational benefits and they will see that. And for OECD investors in nuclear and in the States, they even want to test the waters in the States and be the family that brings advanced nuclear reactors to their country. So it's like a lot of like mixed reasons.

Mark Hinaman (23:15)
of ego tied to that then, right? Like,

Steven Zhang (23:18)
Very much so. I mean, we're talking about family.

Mark Hinaman (23:18)
yeah. We can build a building at a university or we can build a nuclear power plant and bring it to the first one built in Arkansas, right? Like, yeah.

Steven Zhang (23:29)
Yeah, yeah, so like with them, they're the capital that they can unlock by through like the single family office, it's like billion dollar level, they can actually comfortably write that check. And most of them have already done some ⁓ investments in infrastructure, so they're not like super.

unfamiliar with the landscape. And paired up with all of the crazy demands with AI, think more more people are taking a look at it. But how do you tap into it? And I see that my position, I'm very well positioned to bridge that gap, to help them invest in nuclear in the States.

around the globe as well.

Mark Hinaman (24:14)
a billion dollar family office. That's awesome. More of those floating around than you would think, actually. ⁓

Steven Zhang (24:18)
they can actually.

Yeah,

yeah. They'd like...

Mark Hinaman (24:25)
Like there's Forbes list

of richest people in the world and like over a thousand or 2000 billionaires or something like that. Like not just those people, but family offices that, you know, it's shared between a number of folks. There's quite a few.

Steven Zhang (24:38)
Yeah,

⁓ They're already investing in other energy infrastructure forms like oil and gas, solar and all of that. So to them it really is just a way of portfolio management to make sure that they complement each other. Yes, like I said, a lot of reasons for different families.

Mark Hinaman (24:55)
What's the smallest

and I mean, a billion dollars, great, but like, what's the kind of smallest and size family office that you think might.

Steven Zhang (25:03)
So in order to qualify for a family office, you have to be like at least $100 million. But like I said, to meaningfully contribute to a large infrastructure plan, like a traditional AP1000 plan, I think it's just easier to tap into those networks and helping them navigate the space.

Mark Hinaman (25:23)
I What does that mean? Like, advise on, hey, this plant's gonna be a good idea, but this plant's not, consider talking to these technology guys, like, helping out with raising. I don't know what that looks like.

Steven Zhang (25:37)
yeah,

really just like connecting them with all of the networks that I've been like me and Nice Club in general has been built for like the past year. We're very fortunate to have attended like that summit where I met you and we have been developing relationships individually. So.

connecting them to those people and nuclear consulting firms to really give them a very overhead view.

Mark Hinaman (26:02)
Gotcha. Like you've done a bunch of homework ahead

of time. What are they interested in? Hey, we can connect to you. Let us help you out. Nice.

Steven Zhang (26:08)
Yeah,

yeah, and of course there are deal flows of project financing that will go into the granular on a case-to-case basis.

Mark Hinaman (26:18)
So what are some of the financial hurdles that folks might face? it just ignorance and not being educated about investing in the space? I mean, it sounds like there's a minimum capital commitment required.

Steven Zhang (26:34)
Yeah, yeah, I mean, that's not like the only like for for investors, they care about like risk adjust returns, right? And for risks in for nuclear, there really is like three huge pillars. One is regulation, and one is supply chain management and the other's labor market.

especially in the States. with regulations with the current administration, and it has been really progressing a lot. And nuclear has been a bipartisan effort in energy transition and development. So that layer is somewhat alleviated, although

permitting through NRC is still very much a big thing for everybody. But once you get the license, it's a huge booster for investor confidence, and they'll be more comfortable. In addition to that, power purchase agreements from hyperscalers and other stuff. But...

When it comes to supply chain, that is very much a huge issue with nuclear fuel. Currently, most are done outside of US. Yeah.

Mark Hinaman (27:39)
Like literally just having enough nuclear fuel to power these

reactors. To as many reactors as we want to build.

Steven Zhang (27:48)
Yeah, and that has been a huge issue Canada Russia and Australia has Really just been in in the game for like a long time, but ⁓ I see that recently There's a company

American uranium. ⁓ It's literally called American uranium. They're actually advancing in their Wyoming training program. And it's starting like this October, so this month. yeah, I see the effort and everything's happening super fast. I'm really happy that that's happening.

Mark Hinaman (28:15)
Thanks.

Okay, so you say labor is one of those pillars or risks associated or hurdles to overcome. Is that like electricians or craft labor or like welders, like onsite construction? Is that what we're thinking about with labor or is it something else?

Steven Zhang (28:44)
I want from two sides, both the supply of like brilliant minds, which was what we're trying to do as a club to supply all of the brilliant minds at Columbia to nuclear. And at the same time, yes, very much a construction site. We do lack trained labor here in the States and.

Oftentimes, it does contribute to like an overhaul in ⁓ construction timeline. Well, in addition to a lot of financing problems.

Mark Hinaman (29:16)
Nice. Okay. I it's weird. There's a guy just down the hall from me, but like, is in venture capital, and they are investing in a bunch of AI companies. And he's got kind of a cynical pessimistic view of the world. But he's like, I'm planning it right now. My daughter, you know, she's like three or four or whatever years old, she's not gonna have a job. She's not gonna be able to find a job when she graduates, you know, and never gonna have a job because AI is taking all the jobs. And I'm like,

Okay. Are you sure? But nuclear needs a lot of jobs. Like, I don't know.

Steven Zhang (29:50)
Yeah,

yeah, I think in upstate New York alone, like, operating those power plants, we created like 4000 jobs, you know, let alone with constructions like

timelines, it's always project to project. So hiring those skilled laborers on the construction that's going to last like for like around 10 years, that's going to be huge in helping with employment rate and really training that. I do see the effort, for example, like Apple announced their Apple Academy, think in in the States and they

invested in total of six billion dollars in the states. So yes, they care about it. They very much want this to happen.

with developing labor market, there's a lot of challenges to go through. But with the nuclear symposium we hosted, we did have a panel on workforce development. So definitely tuning to that.

Mark Hinaman (30:56)
Here's a little bit, what role do you see for policy in de-risking some of these investments in scaling nuclear energy as a solution?

Steven Zhang (31:09)
Yeah, no, of course. I think the consensus is definitely that the risk factors involved in nuclear construction really does hugely lie within NRC permitting and DOE loan program office.

But this year, think they really drastically improved the timeline. Although with the voracious energy demand we have now, we're still very behind on supplying that energy.

Mark Hinaman (31:41)
So policy decisions to try and accelerate energy development and new electricity construction.

Steven Zhang (31:51)
Yes, that. in addition to that, DOE plays a very important role in that. Their loan program office does offer strategic capital for all of the nuclear power plants. And I think there are three pending bills.

that are related to energy. We'll have to see what it's going to be like. But it has always been a bipartisan effort in pushing nuclear. So I'm very, very optimistic on that side.

Mark Hinaman (32:20)
Awesome. How did you get linked up with Nice Berkeley? Because the Columbia chapter is the second chapter, right, after Berkeley. So who were you engaged with? How did you get the idea to bring a chapter to Columbia? East Coast, or West Coast, East Coast.

Steven Zhang (32:27)
Yes, so yeah.

Yeah, well, it's FICO still as usual. No, we actually met through the Nuclear New York, the nonprofit event that hosted. We actually got connected to Ryan Pickering, who's founded, who's the OG. ⁓

Mark Hinaman (32:49)
Love like, yeah, you'd never know.

I mean, he's just like, oh yeah, I go to this club. You founded it? Yeah.

Steven Zhang (32:59)
Yeah,

yeah. Now, we love the idea and, you know, we think that it's so imperative to have that in Columbia, you know, whether that because like we're in New York and we're in Ivy, right? Like we have to really, really be at the forefront of this nuclear wave and...

Yeah, through Ryan, who is currently working for Oppenheimer Energy, we got to know Charles Oppenheimer. And actually, of our board members is actually working with Charles as head of finance. Well, that guy is Hunter Dare, and he has been in finance his entire life.

We also have the consulting firm, consulting arm powered by Malcolm Biggins, also one of our founding board members. He was in Deloitte for five years, really helping his clients unlocking government grants. we have invested in, we have like,

done several consulting projects with different nuclear startups. And on the policy side, have Andre Hissene. He's mainly the person who lead the group of students interested in policy and law and energy transition in nuclear in general. And they draft the letters to Governor Holko. They draft a lot of different

responses to all of the government requests. So yeah, we have been doing a lot of that. And most recently, we have been pushing for a nuclear program at Columbia, which is very interesting because, you know, it's a

Mark Hinaman (34:42)
that be nuclear engineering

or like other nuclear like, because there could be like nuclear development, nuclear financing, like nuclear advocacy, like political science associated with nuclear, like more than just engineering stuff.

Steven Zhang (34:45)
Yeah.

So

yes, so we think that it'll primarily be, like most feasible options would be nuclear engineering. I mean, we already have a plasma lab, but that's on fusion and not fission. In addition to that, with the climate school, climate policy and strategic advisory, I think those are incredibly valuable.

Columbia Engineering actually announced another fusion program last year. So we're very excited to push beyond that.

Mark Hinaman (35:32)
I don't think we mentioned this. What's NICE's mission?

Steven Zhang (35:38)
As the mission, we really want to serve as a supportive and welcoming hub.

for learners, students, or just people who want to learn more, and experts who want to engage with the next generation and foster an understanding of nuclear technology as vital and clean energy source. Our mission is just trying to secure nuclear energy's role in the future carbon-free energy mix by empowering our

members to really work individually and in teams to really meaningfully contribute to the goals we set at Columbia and beyond. That's sort of an overview of what we do.

Mark Hinaman (36:21)
I it. Love that tidbit. Cool, man. I think we've covered a bunch of our questions, but what advice would you offer to other students who passionate about, I guess, nuclear or another specific energy solution? And if they're trying to do something similar in their community or at their school, what advice do you have for folks?

Steven Zhang (36:23)
Yeah.

contact us, we will. Yes, yeah, we love any nuclear heads. We love everything we do. ⁓ Part of the reason we're able to push so much of events with extremely high position C level people at all of these nuclear

Mark Hinaman (36:44)
Talk to us, come talk to us, we'll help you out.

Steven Zhang (37:07)
firms and nuclear companies and investment firms like head of global infrastructure at UBS or Alan Aldo at Kupenheim Securities who did the spec on Okla and a lot of other venture capital firms like Steel Atlas and this as a point. Yeah, we've got great help.

and it's very much a rewarding process. think most people in nuclear have very different backgrounds. mean, last year I remember...

During the panel at Texas Nuclear Summit, one of the panelists asked on stage, how many of you thought about working in nuclear when you're in high school or in college? The entire room of 400 people, are only a couple raised their hand and everybody would talk to.

they really have like a vastly variety different backgrounds. So it's surprisingly a very inclusive and welcoming environment that we really hope that more people can understand and be part of it.

Mark Hinaman (38:26)
It's pretty cool. The whole world is evolving and lots of our people are getting involved. Cool. Steven, leave us on some closing thoughts. Where do see this all going? How do you see NICE evolving? Tell me about how we're going to build more nuclear in the US and throughout the world.

Steven Zhang (38:44)
We definitely need, for me, public private partnership is most of like for the most. Both sectors really need to find ways to meaningfully contribute. From the public side, loan program office very much helpful.

initiatives on accelerating nuclear permitting, very helpful initiatives to build workforce in the states, very important. On the private side, investors educating themselves going into nuclear, they really have to have an open mind.

It's something that sounds daunting to most investors. That's why I think that from the commodity side, everything commodities is all about risk management. It's basically the part of a commodities job. So I do see interactions, trying to have interactions between the commodity side of my network to the nuclear side of my work and facilitate the conversation on how to...

mitigate the risks in nuclear financing. Yeah, that's, I think that's pretty much it. Because I mean, my thought is definitely derived from a report by the Carlisle Group back in 2014.

that no nuclear power plant is going to happen unless there's a strong public-private partnership. And we see that happening now. the investment space has been booming. The demand is crazy. And everyone's super passionate. So yeah, that's my clothing thought.

Mark Hinaman (40:21)
Same as them. Thanks so much for the time. It's been great to chat to you.

Steven Zhang (40:24)
and I'm really happy to catch up with you as well.

Mark Hinaman (40:26)
Yeah.

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