Next-gen nuclear startup plans 30 reactors to fuel Texas data centers

Last Energy, a nuclear upstart backed by an Elon Musk-linked venture capital fund, says it plans to construct 30 microreactors on a site in Texas to supply electricity to data centers across the state. The initiative, which it says could provide about 600 megawatts of electricity, would be the company’s largest project to date and help it develop a commercial pipeline in the U.S.

Set on a 200-acre site Last Energy has obtained in Haskell County, in northwest Texas, the project still faces likely years of regulatory and public scrutiny. The Washington, D.C.-based company hasn’t yet disclosed customers or the details of its financing, or announced a timeline for the effort. But once construction starts, the firm says it could deliver the plants within 24 months, using its modular, factory-built design.

“Texas is America’s undisputed energy leader, but skyrocketing population growth and data center development is forcing policymakers, customers, and energy providers to embrace new technologies,” said Bret Kugelmass, founder and CEO of Last Energy. Nuclear energy is “the most effective way to meet Texas’ demand, but our solution—plug-and-play microreactors, designed for scalability and siting flexibility—is the best way to meet it quickly.”

The plans are a response to overwhelming demand from data center developers in the state and elsewhere. U.S. tech giants are increasingly turning to nuclear to meet the growing energy demands of artificial intelligence and the data center boom, investing billions in traditional nuclear projects and an array of new ones, including fusion. Of Last Energy’s existing commercial agreements, which entail deploying over 80 microreactors across Europe, half are set to serve data centers.

By powering data centers on-site, “behind the meter,” in addition to linking to the electrical utility, the plants could help sidestep the restraints and price volatility of a grid that’s already stretched thin. They could also be a proving ground for an unprecedented legal gambit: in December, the company joined Texas and Utah in filing suit against the U.S. government over its nuclear regulations. The outcome of that case could speed up this and future projects in the US. 

Until now, Last Energy’s focus has been on signing up customers in Europe, where lighter regulations and an aversion to Russian natural gas have helped accelerate a push toward nuclear power. The company says it has development agreements for more than 50 nuclear reactor facilities in Europe, including a $400 million project at a former coal power plant in Wales that could come online in 2027. In December, the firm received a tentative offer of $103.7 million in debt financing from the Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM) to build the first of those four SMRs. The Texas project would be the company’s first in the U.S.

In Texas, surging energy demand has prompted officials to step up efforts to court the nuclear industry. Already the nation’s leader in fossil fuel production, as well as renewables and battery storage, the Lone Star State currently gets only 10% of its electricity form nuclear power. But a November study by the public utility commission, done at the behest of Gov. Greg Abbott, urged the state to deploy “a coordinated nuclear power strategy to enhance energy security and grid reliability,” and identified 61 sites suitable for small modular reactors.

“Texas is the energy capital of America, and we are working to be No. 1 in advanced nuclear power,” said Abbott in a statement. “Last Energy’s microreactor project in Haskell County will help fulfill the state’s growing data center demand. Texas must become a national leader in advanced nuclear energy. By working together with industry leaders like Last Energy, we will usher in a nuclear power renaissance in the United States.”

With 30 of the company’s shipping-container-sized microreactors each producing 20 megawatts, the site would generate about 600 megawatts, enough electricity for about 150,000 homes on the hottest summer days. A Last Energy spokesperson said the company had initiated the process of grid connection with the state utility, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), and begun pre-application engagement with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to obtain an Early Site Permit for the site. The first reactor is estimated to cost approximately $100 million, the company says, with costs expected to drop as it iterates.

Last has already built two full-scale prototypes in Texas with local manufacturing partners, and says it has secured its first full core load of low-enriched uranium fuel, scheduled to arrive in September 2026. In January it became a founding member of the Texas Nuclear Alliance, which aims to make “Texas the nuclear capital of the world.” the company says it’s also exploring projects in Utah. 

With the deal, the microreactor firm joins a number of companies that have announced plans to fuel their data centers’ voracious electricity demands with nuclear power. Earlier last year, Amazon said it would build a hyperscale data center next to a nuclear plant in Pennsylvania. In September, Microsoft said it would pay Constellation Energy to restart a reactor at Three Mile Island that was closed in 2019. And in October, Google and Kairos Power inked a deal for 500 megawatts of nuclear power.

Meta is also going nuclear. In December, the Facebook parent said it was asking developers to submit proposals to deliver 1 gigawatt to 4 gigawatts of reactor capacity, starting in the early 2030s, as it looks for a reliable energy source for its data centers.

In January, Meta also signed four purchase agreements with Spanish renewable energy developer Zelestra to build four solar projects that can help power Meta’s data centers in the region, currently located in Temple and Fort Worth. The projects, with a combined capacity of 595 megawatts, will deliver electricity to the ERCOT grid, which will then power the data centers.

In Texas, even four years after a deadly, storm-linked blackout, the state utility has continued to struggle to add enough capacity and flexibility to meet a surge in demand. That already includes over 340 data centers which consume nearly 8 GW of power and make up about 9% of all Texas electricity demand; those in the Dallas area alone are expected to need an additional 43 gigawatts of power in the coming years. As with much of the state’s energy consumption, much of the electricity in those data centers is needed just to keep all those hot chips and servers cool.

Smaller, ‘less scary’ reactors

Last is one of a new class of nuclear firms building small-modular reactors (SMR) in ways intended to lower the cost and speed of constructing new plants while enhancing simplicity and safety features. Traditional nuclear plants are hulking installations, providing 1,000 megawatts or more but often beset by cost overruns and construction delays that can stretch to many years. The U.S.’s newest fission reactors, commissioned in 2023 and 2024 in Georgia, were seven years late and more than $17 billion over budget.

SMR startups like Last are attempting to use mass production techniques to bring down costs and speed construction, with reactors that are small enough to be transported by truck. Last tries to advance the technology of the conventional pressurized water reactor with a modular design, factory-built parts, and tools and expertise borrowed from the oil-and-gas industry. The company also hopes to overcome nuclear skepticism with a number of passive safety features, an underground containment system, and a futuristic design meant to look “less scary.” 

By using the pre-arranged price contracts typical to renewable projects, Last Energy also seeks to reduce financial risk and unlock private financing, avoiding the uncertainties that come with typical utility-scale nuclear plants. Under its model, the company owns and operates the reactors and sells the power to the customer under long-term contracts.

“Technology from the nuclear industry, the business model from renewables, and the constructability from oil and gas—that was the founding idea behind Last Energy,” Kugelmass told Fast Company in 2023.

The company has raised a total of $64 million since its 2019 founding, including a $40 million Series B round last year led by the Austin-based VC Gigafund. The heavyweight fund was the first investor in Elon Musk’s SpaceX and its founder, Luke Nosek, now sits on both companies’ boards. 

Venture capital has shown interest in other microreactor designs, too. Last year, Aalo Atomics raised $27 million to scale up a 85-kilowatt design from a Department of Energy program, and Deep Fission, which aims to bury microreactors a mile underground, raised $4 million led by 8VC, a venture firm founded by Joe Lonsdale.

Why Last Energy, Texas, and Utah sued the U.S.

Before Texas, Last Energy had avoided the NRC’s pre-application process, which the agency says can help expedite NRC review. But the pre-application process itself can last years, ahead of a formal application process that can take two years or longer. 

More than a dozen next-gen nuclear developers have begun pre-application work for NRC review, but since December 2023, the agency has approved only three reactors: two low-power, grid-connected test reactor facilities in Tennessee, built by Kairos, and a 1-megawatt research microreactor built by Natura Resources at Abilene Christian University. The regulator approved its first SMR design in January 2023, from NuScale Power, but determined further review was needed, a process it expects to complete in June.

Last Energy is also working on accelerating its regulatory journey. In December. it joined the states of Utah and Texas in suing the NRC over the 69-year-old rule that underpins nuclear reactor licensing in the U.S. The rule, the suit argues, exceeds the agency’s statutory authority and creates an unreasonable burden for microreactor developers. 

The plaintiffs asked the Eastern District of Texas court to exempt Last Energy’s 20-megawatt reactor design and research reactors located in the plaintiff states from the agency’s definition of nuclear “utilization facilities.” That designation subjects all U.S. commercial and research reactors to strict regulatory scrutiny. The suit asks the court to order NRC to develop a more flexible definition for use in future licensing.

Until now, Last Energy has focused on projects abroad, “in order to access alternative regulatory frameworks that incorporate a de minimis standard for nuclear power permitting,” the company said in its lawsuit. 

Patrick White, research director at the Nuclear Innovation Alliance, told Utility Dive last month that, regardless of its merits, the lawsuit underscores the need for “continued discussion around proportional regulatory requirements . . . that align with the hazards of the reactor and correspond to a safety case.”

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