Catalyst with Shayle Kann

Even as momentum grows for U.S. nuclear, the fuel supply chain is often overlooked. This dynamic is shifting as the industry wakes up to critical choke points and a heavy reliance on countries like Russia for enrichment. As America aims to reduce geopolitical dependency in energy, fixing these domestic gaps has become a strategic priority.

In this episode — a companion to a separate episode of Catalyst focused on nuclear waste — Shayle Kann speaks with Scott Nolan, the CEO of General Matter. The company is focused on enrichment, one of the most acute risk areas in the supply chain. Shayle and Scott also discuss the big-picture state of nuclear fuel, from mining to advanced reactor requirements.

The two cover topics like:

The five-step nuclear fuel supply chain

America’s continued reliance on Russian enrichment:

The history of enrichment decline in the US

The "chicken or egg" problem for advanced reactors

Distinctions between LEU and HALEU fuel

Enrichment’s toll-service business model

The strategic importance of General Matter’s enrichment facility in Paducah, Kentucky


Catalyst: The state and future of nuclear waste


Catalyst: The path to market for new nuclear reactors


Catalyst: The US nuclear groundswell


Open Circuit: Inside Meta’s massive nuclear push


Open Circuit: Fear and loathing at the Department of Energy


Latitude Media: What TerraPower’s big milestone says about future nuclear projects


Latitude Media: Commonwealth Fusion Systems launches digital twin with Nvidia and Siemens

Credits: Hosted by Shayle Kann. Produced and edited by Max Savage Levenson. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is our executive editor.

Catalyst is brought to you by FischTank PR, an award-winning climate and energy tech, renewables, and sustainability-focused PR firm dedicated to elevating the work of both early-stage and established companies. Learn more about their PR approach and how they can support your company’s messaging by visiting fischtankpr.com.

Catalyst is brought to you by EnergyHub. EnergyHub helps utilities build next-generation virtual power plants that unlock reliable flexibility at every level of the grid. See how EnergyHub helps unlock the power of flexibility at scale, and deliver more value through cross-DER dispatch with their leading Edge DERMS platform, by visiting energyhub.com.

Battery markets have a pattern: They boom, capital floods in, prices collapse, and then the cycle starts again.

So as storage becomes more important than ever, how do we maximize revenue and deliver needed flexibility?

In this episode, Stephen Lacey speaks with Sean McEvoy, chief product officer and head of commercial at GridBeyond North America, about how that cycle is playing out across global power markets — and what happens when batteries stop being scarce.

As markets saturate, the source of value begins to shift. It’s no longer just about building assets. It’s about how precisely you can forecast, optimize, and trade them.

GridBeyond sits between energy assets and energy markets, using AI to coordinate everything from industrial loads to battery fleets. It is increasingly bringing that model to data centers.

These facilities are driving a surge in electricity demand, but they also introduce a new tension. The grid increasingly needs flexible loads, but data centers are built for reliability, not interruption. 

The result is a wave of new approaches, from behind-the-meter batteries to “bring your own capacity” strategies that pair infrastructure with grid support.

Learn more about how GridBeyond develops AI software that helps businesses unlock flexibility in their energy systems.

The nuclear power sector is gaining a lot of momentum. But even as SMRs continue to flourish, the Department of Energy’s reactor pilot program moves forward, and decommissioned plants come back online, the question of what to do with nuclear waste has largely stayed out of the spotlight. The U.S. currently houses 90,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel; as more plants come online, that number could rise dramatically. 

In this episode, Shayle speaks to Dr. Jen Shafer, a former ARPA-E director and current professor at the Colorado School of Mines, to learn more about waste itself, and how to dispose of — or recycle it — as the industry evolves.

The two cover topics like:

The physical and chemical composition of spent nuclear fuel

Short-term versus long-term hazards of waste

The stalled disposal site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada

Wet versus dry storage methods for nuclear waste

The strategies for managing the waste from advanced reactors

The “take back” model for managing microreactor waste

Resources


Catalyst: The path to market for new nuclear reactors


Catalyst: The US nuclear groundswell


Open Circuit: Inside Meta’s massive nuclear push


Open Circuit: Fear and loathing at the Department of Energy


Latitude Media: What TerraPower’s big milestone says about future nuclear projects


Latitude Media: Commonwealth Fusion Systems launches digital twin with Nvidia and Siemens


Latitude Media: Trump Media’s bizarre fusion play for TAE Technologies

Credits: Hosted by Shayle Kann. Produced and edited by Max Savage Levenson. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is our executive editor.

Catalyst is brought to you by Uplight. Uplight activates energy customers and their connected devices to generate, shift, and save energy—improving grid resilience and energy affordability while accelerating decarbonization. Learn how Uplight is helping utilities unlock flexible load at scale at uplight.com. 

Catalyst is brought to you by Antenna Group, the public relations and strategic marketing agency of choice for climate, energy, and infrastructure leaders. If you're a startup, investor, or global corporation that's looking to tell your climate story, demonstrate your impact, or accelerate your growth, Antenna Group's team of industry insiders is ready to help. Learn more at antennagroup.com.

Catalyst is brought to you by EnergyHub. EnergyHub helps utilities build next-generation virtual power plants that unlock reliable flexibility at every level of the grid. See how EnergyHub helps unlock the power of flexibility at scale, and deliver more value through cross-DER dispatch with their leading Edge DERMS platform, by visiting energyhub.com.

Despite the dark cloud of federal policy hanging over the solar industry, skyrocketing load growth is driving demand. The question is whether supply can keep up.

In this episode, Shayle talks to Scott Moskowitz — VP of market strategy and public affairs at Qcells and board chair of the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) — about the challenges of reshoring solar in the U.S.

They cover topics like:

How supply chain resilience incentivize reshoring efforts

The specific state of polysilicon, wafers, cells, and module reshoring

Why resource “clustering” has been a boon for Chinese solar manufacturing

Industry challenges around permitting solar

Why American solar remains so much more expensive per watt than Chinese solar

The threat of technological obsolescence to funding solar projects

Resources


Catalyst: More 2026 trends: Solar costs, oil oversupply, and the startup slump


Catalyst: Tumult in residential solar


Open Circuit: Does residential solar have a bad product?


Latitude Media: GlassPoint is back, and armed with global expansion plans


Latitude Media: Tesla’s rooftop solar paradox


Latitude Media: Can the US bring solar installation to below $2 per watt?

Credits: Hosted by Shayle Kann. Produced and edited by Max Savage Levenson. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is our executive editor.

Catalyst is brought to you by Uplight. Uplight activates energy customers and their connected devices to generate, shift, and save energy—improving grid resilience and energy affordability while accelerating decarbonization. Learn how Uplight is helping utilities unlock flexible load at scale at uplight.com.

Catalyst is brought to you by Antenna Group, the public relations and strategic marketing agency of choice for climate, energy, and infrastructure leaders. If you're a startup, investor, or global corporation that's looking to tell your climate story, demonstrate your impact, or accelerate your growth, Antenna Group's team of industry insiders is ready to help. Learn more at antennagroup.com.

Catalyst is brought to you by EnergyHub. EnergyHub helps utilities build next-generation virtual power plants that unlock reliable flexibility at every level of the grid. See how EnergyHub helps unlock the power of flexibility at scale, and deliver more value through cross-DER dispatch with their leading Edge DERMS platform, by visiting energyhub.com.

As demand for data center power skyrockets, available options to provide that power have dwindled. And cohesive frameworks for finding sustainable generation remain few and far between.

In this episode, Shayle speaks with Jake Elder, senior vice president of research and innovation at Energy Impact Partners. The two colleagues dig into the four main generation solutions — on grid, off grid, on edge, and off planet – and consider the viability of each in the years to come.

Shayle and Jake explore topics like:

A ten year forecast: Jake’s prediction for how the global "compute pie" will get split up between these four pathways

Jake’s skepticism around whether a shift towards on-device compute can scale effectively

The worsening bottleneck facing on-grid connection

Building “shock absorbers” into the infrastructure of off-grid data centers that enable them to maintain “five nines[a][b][c]” of reliability

The feasibility of making orbital data centers affordable

The logistics behind creating radiators “the size of a small town” to dissipate heat from orbital data centers

Resources:


Catalyst: PJM and ERCOT are navigating a capacity rollercoaster


Catalyst: Will inference move to the edge?


Catalyst: Who benefits from the AI power bottleneck?


Open Circuit: Are investors losing faith in the AI infrastructure frenzy?


Open Circuit: The White House AI power pledge: Political theater or policy?


Latitude Media: The data center boom is a diesel generator boom


Latitude Media: How Hitachi became a speed-to-power company

Credits: Hosted by Shayle Kann. Produced and edited by Max Savage Levenson, Anne Bailey, and Sean Marquand. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is our executive editor.

Catalyst is brought to you by Uplight. Uplight activates energy customers and their connected devices to generate, shift, and save energy—improving grid resilience and energy affordability while accelerating decarbonization. Learn how Uplight is helping utilities unlock flexible load at scale at uplight.com. 

Catalyst is brought to you by Antenna Group, the public relations and strategic marketing agency of choice for climate, energy, and infrastructure leaders. If you're a startup, investor, or global corporation that's looking to tell your climate story, demonstrate your impact, or accelerate your growth, Antenna Group's team of industry insiders is ready to help. Learn more at antennagroup.com.

Catalyst is brought to you by EnergyHub. EnergyHub helps utilities build next-generation virtual power plants that unlock reliable flexibility at every level of the grid. See how EnergyHub helps unlock the power of flexibility at scale, and deliver more value through cross-DER dispatch with their leading Edge DERMS platform, by visiting energyhub.com.