Explorez tous les épisodes du podcast Stranded
| Titre | Date | Durée | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kirsty Gogan: Can we build nuclear like a product? | 29 Sep 2026 | 00:53:57 | |
Can nuclear power plants be built more like products, and less like one-off megaprojects? In this episode of Stranded, Marie Espitalier-Noël speaks with Kirsty Gogan, co-founder of TerraPraxis and managing partner at LucidCatalyst, about what it would take to make nuclear construction faster, more predictable and ultimately financeable. The conversation begins with a striking finding from the Nuclear Cost Drivers study: the enormous gap between successful nuclear programmes and recent high-cost Western projects cannot be explained by reactor technology alone. Design completion, experienced delivery organisations, construction sequencing and repetition matter just as much. Marie and Kirsty explore whether small modular reactors genuinely solve this problem, or simply place smaller reactors inside conventional megaprojects. They discuss what nuclear could learn from automotive platforms, aircraft manufacturing and shipyards, and how open architectures could allow industrial customers to buy standardised energy systems rather than commission bespoke plants. The episode also examines the commercial models emerging around advanced nuclear: hyperscaler demand, X-energy, Aalo Atomics, Blue Energy’s shipyard manufacturing and gas-to-nuclear strategy, and TerraPraxis’ work to repower coal plants while reusing sites, grid connections and local infrastructure. Finally, they compare the US financing ecosystem with Europe’s fragmented approach, and ask what institutions such as the EIB and other development banks would need to do to make advanced nuclear investable at scale. Chapters 00:00 — Introduction Resources • ETI Nuclear Cost Drivers Project Stranded explores the technologies, business models and investment decisions shaping the climate transitio, and the gap between what technology can deliver and what capital is prepared to finance. Hosted by Marie Espitalier-Noël. Conversations on climate, capital, and what gets left behind. Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/fugu-vibes/plastic-world License code: YJBJ7TXQRA21RPDC | |||
| Thomas Giehm: The Tools Beneath Geothermal's Boom | 25 Aug 2026 | 00:44:58 | |
Fervo Energy's May 2026 IPO was the largest clean-energy listing on record, and the market read it as proof that enhanced geothermal works. Thomas Giehm, Investment Manager at Underground Ventures, Europe's only VC fund dedicated to geothermal technology, invests one layer beneath developers like Fervo: the drilling tools, downhole electronics, and completion technology that have to perform before any well produces power. From that seat, he separates what the IPO actually validates, investor appetite for firm clean power and a demonstrated cost curve on a still-small well count, from what remains open: whether a 35% learning rate holds across thousands of wells drilled into deeper, hotter rock. We trace geothermal's borrowed playbook from shale, the one place that analogy breaks, and why Europe, despite real geothermal resources, hasn't produced its own Fervo yet. We close on what a background in commodity trading sees in an energy bet that a traditional VC might miss, and one early belief about geothermal Thomas has had to revise. In this episode:
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Guest: Thomas Giehm, Investment Manager at Underground Ventures. Stranded is a podcast on climate finance and the energy transition: what it costs, who carries the risk, and what gets left behind. New episodes every three weeks. Subscribe wherever you listen. Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/fugu-vibes/plastic-world License code: I7WGHXOEFDBOSVI8 | |||