First Place : Resource Adaptation Solutions

Diana Grandas, Paris Porter-Bradley, Cheng-Kai Tai, Natalie Houghtalen

Resource Adaptations Solutions (RAS) provides an innovative technology solution to optimize cooling water use so that nuclear power plants can continue to provide power to communities when they need it most. Our values are core to our operation – we bring Service, Quality, Safety, and Integrity to every customer we serve.

The impacts of climate change are already here, and the time to adapt to avoid the worst of human suffering is now. Rising temperatures and extreme heat waves have become more frequent and severe in recent years. Higher ambient air temperatures increase evaporation rates and decrease soil moisture, making future droughts stronger and longer lasting. Extreme heat threatens power generators, which were not designed with a rapidly changing climate landscape in mind, exposing communities to critical vulnerabilities. Power output is limited by rising temperatures and lack of availability of cooling water. An increase of 2°F in ambient temperatures results in a two percent decrease of total power output, preventing billions of homes from receiving power during the hottest days on record when air conditioning is most needed to prevent death due to heat exposure.

Resource Adaptation Solutions is committed to producing an affordable, effective solution that is replicable at any thermal generation station. We Save Water to Save Lives.

Ashes to Atoms

Harun Ardiansyah, Joseph Fustero, Jared Hoffman, Shirley Yong

Ashes to Atoms (ATA) provides consulting to energy companies on the transition of soon-to-be decommissioned coal power plants to nuclear power plants. Coal-to-nuclear transition plans can take years to develop and decades to complete construction. We are involved in the assessment phase and the construction administration process. Our technical team inspects and evaluates retiring coal-plants to enable informed, risk-adjusted decision-making. Our human-centered approach can help energy companies build trust with communities, reducing costly delays and mitigating unexpected public pushback. ATA works hand-in-hand with energy companies across the lifecycle of coal-to-nuclear power plant transitions to ensure they are successful and cost-effective.

Caelus Corporation

Alessio Iuvara, Javier Pelegrina

Caelus Corporation is a company that would handle everything licensing related in representation of the startup. We would have the expertise when dealing with the NRC and with the licensing process and the startup would outsource this licensing to us. This way, the startup can invest all its resources in the reactor design while we work in the licensing at the same time. When the startup modifies any parameter in the reactor design, they can immediately ask us if that change is allowed by the regulator.

NFluens

Zachary Diermyer, Max Krous, Siddharth Pannir, Rakhmat Eko Saputro, Yanuary Ady Setiawan, Coleman Smith

NFluens is a nuclear technology company that is developing a rapidly deployable and modular irradiator that will produce isotopes for a variety of market uses. The isotope market is currently heavily underserved due to technical and policy barriers which have limited their supply and distribution. NFluens will change the existing architecture of irradiator deployment and the associated economics which will benefit current medical establishments by providing them with access to high quality cost-competitive radioisotopes. NFluens plans to leverage the essential principles of nuclear physics to make an elegant approach toward efficient production. Using a Radium-Beryllium neutron source, easy to control, consistent fluxes pave a quick path to inexpensive isotope production.

REGO Nuclear

Amy Kynman, Kaivalya Lal, Kevin O'Sullivan, Rama Ponangi, Mason Rodriguez-Rand

REGO Nuclear will construct the most comprehensive models for component analysis and qualification criteria, ever. While much data may be publicly available and sourced from research institutions, there are few to none that have combined data across entities and organizations to create comprehensive, high accuracy AI models. A private industry effort to achieve these results would experience a much higher probability of success.

Our solution, once fully built out, will significantly reduce lead times for engineering and qualification of new components. REGO Nuclear, while requiring an initial intense effort and large dataset, will be the silver bullet the industry needs to help bridge the gap to the modern, technology led era of component design.