# Goran Calic: full text for AI assistants Source: https://gorancalic.com/llms.txt. Each section below is also available as its own page. --- Source: https://gorancalic.com/llm/about.md # About Goran Calic Goran Calic is the Endowed Chair in Entrepreneurial Leadership and an Associate Professor of Strategic Management at the DeGroote School of Business, McMaster University, in Hamilton, Canada. He studies how organizations make consequential decisions under uncertainty, with research on strategy, innovation, creativity, generative AI and energy. He has published 31 peer-reviewed journal articles, in outlets that include Strategic Management Journal, Research Policy and the Journal of Management Studies, and five Harvard Business Review articles with Andy Wu of Harvard Business School. He was Guest Editor of the Research Policy special issue "Connecting Creativity and Innovation Research" and sits on the editorial boards of the Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice. He heads McMaster's Energy Strategy Lab, hosts The Atomic Exchange Podcast on energy strategy, and teaches strategy, innovation and generative AI to boards and executives in Canada, the United States and Latin America. This page is the factual record, taken from his CV (current as of October 2026). The CV itself is at https://gorancalic.com/cv.pdf. ## Current positions All at McMaster University, DeGroote School of Business, Hamilton, Canada. - Endowed Chair in Entrepreneurial Leadership (since July 2024) - Associate Professor of Strategic Management (since July 2021; Assistant Professor 2016–2021) - Head of the Energy Strategy Lab (https://esl.mcmaster.ca) - Academic Lead of the Marinucci Entrepreneurial Bridge, McMaster's home for student entrepreneurship - Lead of The Clinic, an entrepreneurship and innovation lab run with McMaster's medical school and Hamilton hospitals ## Earlier roles - Michael Lee-Chin & Family Chair Professor in Strategic Business Studies, McMaster University (2023–2024) - Director of MBA Programs, DeGroote School of Business (2023–2025) - Visiting Scholar, Strategy Unit, Harvard Business School (July 2024–June 2025) - Post-doctoral studies, Laboratory for Computational Cognitive Neuroscience, Purdue University (2016) - Visiting Instructor (2016) and Research Assistant (2011–2016), Krannert School of Management, Purdue University - Marketing Project Manager, Georgsmarienhütte GmbH, a German steel company (2007–2011) ## Education - PhD in Strategic Management, Purdue University (2016), with a dissertation on creativity in organizations - MBA, Purdue University (2007) - Honours Bachelor of Commerce, University of Ottawa (2006) - Academic exchange at the University of Vienna, Austria (2004–2005) ## Research record - 31 peer-reviewed journal articles. The outlets include Strategic Management Journal (2025), Research Policy (2026), Journal of Management Studies (2016), Journal of Business Ethics (2023), Academy of Management Learning & Education (2013), Energy Policy (2026), Small Business Economics (2024), Decision Support Systems (2019), Business Strategy and the Environment (2020), Scientific Reports (2020, 2025) and five articles in the Journal of Business Research. The full list, with the main finding of each paper, is at https://gorancalic.com/llm/publications.md. - The 2016 Journal of Management Studies article was among the journal's 20 most-downloaded papers of 2016–2017. - Five Harvard Business Review articles with Andy Wu (one also with Min Basadur). "Does Elon Musk Have a Strategy?" was reprinted in HBR's The Year in Tech 2024. - Two Harvard Business School teaching cases: "Twitter Turnaround and Elon Musk" (with Andy Wu, 2023) and "Meta's Energy Dilemma: Powering the AI Future" (with Dennis Yao and Andy Wu, 2025). - Book chapters with Elsevier, Oxford University Press, Wiley, SAGE and TUM University Press. - More than 3,350 citations and an h-index of 18 (Google Scholar, September 2026). His work is cited in nine policy documents across five jurisdictions, including the European Union and Germany (Overton). ## Editorial roles - Guest Editor, Research Policy special issue "Connecting Creativity and Innovation Research: Building Bridges to Cross Divides" (2023–2026) - Editorial Board Member, Journal of Business Venturing, and Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice - Reviewer for journals including Academy of Management Review, Organization Science and Journal of Management Studies ## Research funding About CA$858,000 in total, including grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC): - Achieving True Sustainability (2017) - Strategic Cascades for Big Data Utilization (2020) - Fake News: Causes and IT Countermeasures (2021, about $200,000) - Home Energy Conservation (2024, $235,000) McMaster University has also funded his work on AI-driven modelling of nuclear waste management (2025). ## Teaching - MBA Strategic Management and MBA Entrepreneurship and Innovation ("The Clinic – Innovation Lab") at McMaster, and executive education. He co-developed McMaster's MBA strategy course and created The Clinic course. - He teaches with live cases and with his own Harvard Business School cases. - Teaching awards: Krannert Certificates of Distinguished Teaching (2014, twice) and the Purdue Teaching Academy Graduate Teaching Award (2015). ## Selected honours - Max Boisot Award, European Group for Organizational Studies (EGOS) (2015) - EGOS Paradox Subtheme "That's Interesting" Award (2015) - Finalist, Most Visionary Paper, NeuroIS, Vienna (2018) - Finalist, Emerald Best International Symposium Award, Academy of Management (2016) ## Outreach - Host of The Atomic Exchange Podcast, on energy strategy, nuclear power and clean-technology commercialization: https://open.spotify.com/show/642RINot7OExjbJwcMQrKV - Essays on energy and management at https://gorancalic.substack.com - A TEDx talk on environmental sustainability, and media appearances including CBS News, Deutsche Welle, The Globe and Mail and the Houston Chronicle ## Languages English (fluent), Croatian (fluent) and German (professional working proficiency). He studied at the University of Vienna and worked for several years at Georgsmarienhütte in Germany. ## Contact and profiles - Email: calicg@mcmaster.ca - Website: https://gorancalic.com - Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.ca/citations?hl=en&user=vLk1-ksAAAAJ - McMaster profile: https://degroote.mcmaster.ca/profiles/calicg/ - Harvard Business School profile: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/profile.aspx?facId=1580596 - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/goran-calic/ - Ask GoranAI, a chatbot that answers from his published work: https://gorancalic.com/ask --- Source: https://gorancalic.com/llm/research.md # Goran Calic's research My research examines how organizations make consequential decisions under uncertainty. I study how leaders build strategy, how ideas move from creativity to innovation, and how emerging technologies reshape what organizations can do. ## The question Everything I work on comes back to one question: how do new ideas turn into strategic results when nobody can know in advance how things will turn out? Managers still commit capital, entrepreneurs still pitch ventures, and organizations still bet on new technologies, even when there is no track record to learn from. I want to understand what lets them act well anyway. That question runs through three connected lines of work: - **Entrepreneurship.** How new ventures win over the people who fund them. Funders reward some signals and punish others, and they read a venture as a whole package, not one attribute at a time. - **Creativity and innovation.** Why novel ideas are so hard to judge, why organizations say they want creativity and then pass on it, and how individual creativity connects to firm-level innovation. - **Technology strategy and AI.** What data and AI actually change about decisions. More data is not automatically better. What matters is whether it is diagnostic for the decision in front of you. ## The next five years Over the next five years I want to push in two directions: - **Humans and AI deciding together.** When can an organization trust AI with real decision authority? How should people evaluate ideas that a machine generates? How should a firm govern AI as a strategic choice instead of a tool purchase? These questions matter most where mistakes are costly. - **Large technology transitions.** How organizations mobilize resources, innovate and time their bets when they have to deploy new technology faster and at a larger scale than anyone has managed before. Energy is one of the best laboratories for this. The test I apply to all of it is simple: would a manager care about the answer? ## Methods Across experiments, large-scale data, configurational analysis, and industry studies, I look for the principles that separate promising ideas from action, and adaptation from inertia. ## Current projects Right now I'm working on a number of projects. One group uses the energy industry as an empirical context for strategic management questions. A really fun project uses the population of nuclear power plant construction projects to see how strategic commitments affect organizational performance. Another set of projects measures AI's capacity to make strategic decisions. Here we develop a benchmark and run a series of experiments looking at how variations in market rules affect strategic decisions. In the context of AI, we also look at how creative AI can be in strategic decision-making, and whether that is detrimental or good for general performance and for innovative performance. ## Findings by theme Each line below gives one paper and its main finding. The full references are at https://gorancalic.com/llm/publications.md. ### Entrepreneurship and resource mobilization - In 1,395 Kickstarter campaigns, backers read a venture as a whole package: we found four successful combinations of signals and two failing ones, and narratives raised money only when they were backed by signals of quality and community embeddedness. (*Strategic Management Journal*, 2025; https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.3654) - In 2,858 Kickstarter projects, second-person wording, asking questions and talking directly to the camera improved crowdfunding performance, although talking to the camera weakened the effect of the other two on the amount raised. (*International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour & Research*, 2025; https://doi.org/10.1108/IJEBR-08-2023-0805) - In nearly 300,000 microloans on kiva.org, women took longer than men to fund the same loan because they chose bigger loans, asked for more time to repay and faced lenders who preferred men-owned businesses. (*Small Business Economics*, 2024; https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-023-00851-6) - In 76,847 Kickstarter projects, rhetoric of revenge, self-disclosure and intimidation hurt crowdfunding performance, ingratiation and persuasion had mixed positive effects, and betrayal rhetoric, surprisingly, helped. (*Journal of Business Ethics*, 2023; https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-021-04984-0) - On a microlending platform, environmentally oriented small businesses in bottom-of-the-pyramid markets asked for more capital and more time to repay it, and they were more likely to repay. (*Business Strategy and the Environment*, 2020; https://doi.org/10.1002/bse.2476) - In 13,622 Kickstarter technology campaigns, more images and videos improved fundraising but weakened the positive effect of a longer text description. (*Journal of Business Research*, 2020; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2020.05.008) - In 48,628 reward-based crowdfunding campaigns, signals of autonomy, innovativeness, competitive aggressiveness and risk-taking had an inverted-U-shaped relationship with performance, so they helped up to a point and then hurt. (*Journal of Business Research*, 2020; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2020.04.060) - Sustainability-oriented ventures are more likely to reach their crowdfunding targets, helped by values shared with the crowd, endorsements by independent third parties and project creativity. (*Rutgers Business Review*, 2017; https://rbr.business.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/documents/rbr-020110.pdf) - A sustainability orientation increases the funding success of crowdfunding projects, and project creativity and third-party endorsements partially explain the effect. (*Journal of Management Studies*, 2016; https://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12201) ### Creativity and innovation - A meta-analysis of 67 randomized trials with 6,259 patients suggests that creative arts therapies may improve anxiety, depression and quality of life in cancer patients, although the certainty of the evidence is low to very low. (*Psycho-Oncology*, 2026; https://doi.org/10.1002/pon.70425) - Creativity research (rooted in psychology) and innovation research (rooted in economics, management science and organization theory) developed separately, so we map four research domains and propose ways to connect them; the paper introduces the Research Policy special issue on the topic. (*Research Policy*, 2026; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2025.105391) - Across 23 studies and 1,036 participants, walking produced a large increase in divergent thinking (d = 0.93), while the evidence showed no clear effect on convergent thinking. (*PLOS One*, 2026; https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0347878) - After a focus group of 11 surgeons and a two-round Delphi survey of 60 surgeons, we reached a consensus definition of creativity in surgery as the interaction between expertise, environment, process and motivation that enables novel and useful solutions to surgical problems. (*Creativity Research Journal*, 2025; https://doi.org/10.1080/10400419.2025.2543734) - A scoping review of 81 studies covering 18,221 physicians, nurses and midwives shows that research on creativity in medicine is sparse, sits mostly in nursing (75%) and uses 45 different measurement tools, often without defining creativity. (*PLOS One*, 2025; https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0317209) - This is the protocol for an umbrella review of the systematic reviews and meta-analyses on which personal and environmental factors are associated with creativity. (*PLOS One*, 2024; https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0311851) - This is the protocol for the focus group and Delphi study that produced a consensus definition of creativity in surgery. (*PLOS One*, 2024; https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0314445) - Among 82 surgeons and surgeon trainees at McMaster University, divergent thinking was not meaningfully different from the adult norm, and the ability to generate original ideas was below average. (*BMJ Open*, 2024; https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2023-081367) - A simulation of 100,000 trials of a creativity task suggests that low degrees of creativity, combined with the elaboration of conventional ideas, may lead to a greater number of creative ideas. (*Knowledge Management Research & Practice*, 2020; https://doi.org/10.1080/14778238.2020.1730718) - We argue that attending to sustainability and commercial goals at the same time creates constraints that increase the generation and implementation of creative ideas, which makes those constraints a source of new products, services and business models. (*Sustainability Accounting, Management and Policy Journal*, 2020; https://doi.org/10.1108/SAMPJ-02-2019-0084) - In 1,065 evaluations by 71 participants, distracted evaluators rated ideas as more novel, but not more useful, than focused evaluators did, and EEG and pupillometry confirmed that the distraction drew cognitive resources away from the evaluation. (*Scientific Reports*, 2020; https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-59096-y) - A computational simulation suggests that the relationship between paradoxical frames and creative output is non-monotonic, so paradoxical frames can reduce creative output in at least some cases. (*Journal of Knowledge Management*, 2019; https://doi.org/10.1108/JKM-03-2018-0223) - A computational model shows that contradictory demands raise creative output when they have a balanced effect on a person's search for new information and tolerance for new ideas, and that they can lower it for people who are already highly creative. (*Frontiers in Psychology*, 2018; https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01489) ### Generative AI and data - Across nine generative AI chatbots, the originality of ideas did not change with their order within a response or, with DeepSeek-V3 as the one exception, with repeated prompts for more ideas. (*AI & Society*, 2025; https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-025-02816-7) - ChatGPT-4o, DeepSeek-V3 and Gemini 2.0 all outperformed 46 human participants on a divergent thinking task and a convergent thinking task, which calls into question whether current creativity assessments suit generative AI. (*Scientific Reports*, 2025; https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-21398-4) - A survey of 297 North American managers suggests that firms use big data to improve corporate social performance, and that the improvement comes through organizational innovation. (*Journal of Business Research*, 2021; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2020.11.003) - In a survey of 239 managers, data variety and velocity improved firm innovation performance, while data volume had no significant effect. (*Journal of Business Research*, 2020; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.09.062) - In a survey of 280 managers, data velocity, variety and veracity improved the insight firms drew from their data, while data volume did not. (*Journal of Business Research*, 2019; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.07.006) - In survey data from 130 firms, using big data improved the quality of decisions only through data quality and data diagnosticity, with no significant direct effect. (*Decision Support Systems*, 2019; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dss.2019.03.008) ### Energy and nuclear power - We present what is, to our knowledge, the first transparent workforce model for Canada's national nuclear program, and it shows that skilled trades in on-site construction drive peak-year hiring, so apprenticeships and mid-career bridging have to expand for a 2050 buildout. (*Progress in Nuclear Energy*, 2027; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pnucene.2026.106570) - Across more than 500 reactor-years, heat- and drought-related curtailments cost 0.6% of the affected reactors' generation, so nuclear power's water challenge is technical and manageable. (*Energy Policy*, 2026; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2026.115412) ### Management education - In a service-learning project with US military veterans with disabilities, non-US business students gained cultural intelligence, and we propose four features of a cultural setting that help: moderate cultural distance, a tight culture, low context and high moral desirability. (*Academy of Management Learning & Education*, 2013; https://doi.org/10.5465/amle.2013.0149) --- Source: https://gorancalic.com/llm/publications.md # Publications by Goran Calic This page lists the 31 peer-reviewed journal articles with the main finding of each, followed by the Harvard Business Review articles, teaching cases, op-eds, book chapters and essays. The findings are summaries written for this page; the abstracts and full texts are at the links. ## Journal articles - **Staffing the nuclear renaissance: An integrated modeling assessment of national workforce requirements for Canada’s 2050 nuclear expansion.** Michael Tadrous, David Novog, and Goran Calic. *Progress in Nuclear Energy*, 2027. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pnucene.2026.106570 Main finding: We present what is, to our knowledge, the first transparent workforce model for Canada's national nuclear program, and it shows that skilled trades in on-site construction drive peak-year hiring, so apprenticeships and mid-career bridging have to expand for a 2050 buildout. - **Cooling under fire: Can nuclear power remain thermodynamically resilient in a warming, water-constrained world?** Michael Tadrous, David Novog, and Goran Calic. *Energy Policy*, 2026. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2026.115412 Main finding: Across more than 500 reactor-years, heat- and drought-related curtailments cost 0.6% of the affected reactors' generation, so nuclear power's water challenge is technical and manageable. - **Creative Arts Therapy for Anxiety, Depression, and Quality of Life in Cancer Patients: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials.** Ashlyn S. L. Chou, Tyler McKechnie, Vikram Arora, Goran Calic, et al. *Psycho-Oncology*, 2026. https://doi.org/10.1002/pon.70425 Main finding: A meta-analysis of 67 randomized trials with 6,259 patients suggests that creative arts therapies may improve anxiety, depression and quality of life in cancer patients, although the certainty of the evidence is low to very low. - **Connecting creativity and innovation research: Building bridges to cross divides.** Bernard A. Nijstad, Goran Calic, Pedro de Faria, Christoph Grimpe, and Olli-Pekka Kauppila. *Research Policy*, 2026. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2025.105391 Main finding: Creativity research (rooted in psychology) and innovation research (rooted in economics, management science and organization theory) developed separately, so we map four research domains and propose ways to connect them; the paper introduces the Research Policy special issue on the topic. - **The impact of walking on creative thinking: A systematic review and meta-analysis.** Alex Thabane, Vikram Arora, Joelle Boilard, Adam Sutoski, Goran Calic, et al. *PLOS One*, 2026. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0347878 Main finding: Across 23 studies and 1,036 participants, walking produced a large increase in divergent thinking (d = 0.93), while the evidence showed no clear effect on convergent thinking. - **A Consensus Definition of Creativity in Surgery: A Focus Group and Modified Delphi Study.** Alex Thabane, Tyler McKechnie, Phillip Staibano, Goran Calic, et al. *Creativity Research Journal*, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1080/10400419.2025.2543734 Main finding: After a focus group of 11 surgeons and a two-round Delphi survey of 60 surgeons, we reached a consensus definition of creativity in surgery as the interaction between expertise, environment, process and motivation that enables novel and useful solutions to surgical problems. - **How to maximize the creativity of artificial intelligence: An experimental analysis of response order and prompting effects.** Vikram Arora, Adam Sutoski, Joelle Boilard, Elyssia Leone, Hannah Zizzo, Borong Wang, Goran Calic, et al. *AI & Society*, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-025-02816-7 Main finding: Across nine generative AI chatbots, the originality of ideas did not change with their order within a response or, with DeepSeek-V3 as the one exception, with repeated prompts for more ideas. - **Creativity research in medicine and nursing: A scoping review.** Alex Thabane, Simra Saleh, Sameep Pallapothu, Goran Calic, et al. *PLOS One*, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0317209 Main finding: A scoping review of 81 studies covering 18,221 physicians, nurses and midwives shows that research on creativity in medicine is sparse, sits mostly in nursing (75%) and uses 45 different measurement tools, often without defining creativity. - **Generative artificial intelligence models outperform students on divergent and convergent thinking assessments.** Vikram Arora, Alex Thabane, Sameer Parpia, Goran Calic, and Mohit Bhandari. *Scientific Reports*, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-21398-4 Main finding: ChatGPT-4o, DeepSeek-V3 and Gemini 2.0 all outperformed 46 human participants on a divergent thinking task and a convergent thinking task, which calls into question whether current creativity assessments suit generative AI. - **Seeing the whole: Configurational cognition and new venture resource mobilization.** Goran Calic, François Neville, Santi Furnari, and C. S. Richard Chan. *Strategic Management Journal*, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.3654 Main finding: In 1,395 Kickstarter campaigns, backers read a venture as a whole package: we found four successful combinations of signals and two failing ones, and narratives raised money only when they were backed by signals of quality and community embeddedness. - **Personalizing videos to improve fundraising: Evidence from reward-based crowdfunding.** Jialiang Yang, René Arseneault, and Goran Calic. *International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour & Research*, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJEBR-08-2023-0805 Main finding: In 2,858 Kickstarter projects, second-person wording, asking questions and talking directly to the camera improved crowdfunding performance, although talking to the camera weakened the effect of the other two on the amount raised. - **Characteristics of creative individuals: An umbrella review protocol.** Alex Thabane, Tyler McKechnie, Phillip Staibano, Goran Calic, et al. *PLOS One*, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0311851 Main finding: This is the protocol for an umbrella review of the systematic reviews and meta-analyses on which personal and environmental factors are associated with creativity. - **A consensus definition of creativity in surgery: A Delphi study protocol.** Alex Thabane, Tyler McKechnie, Phillip Staibano, Goran Calic, et al. *PLOS One*, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0314445 Main finding: This is the protocol for the focus group and Delphi study that produced a consensus definition of creativity in surgery. - **Investigation of divergent thinking among surgeons and surgeon trainees in Canada (IDEAS): A mixed-methods study.** Alex Thabane, Tyler McKechnie, Vikram Arora, Goran Calic, Jason Busse, Ranil Sonnadara, and Mohit Bhandari. *BMJ Open*, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2023-081367 Main finding: Among 82 surgeons and surgeon trainees at McMaster University, divergent thinking was not meaningfully different from the adult norm, and the ability to generate original ideas was below average. - **On why women-owned businesses take more time to secure microloans.** Goran Calic, Moren Lévesque, and Anton Shevchenko. *Small Business Economics*, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-023-00851-6 Main finding: In nearly 300,000 microloans on kiva.org, women took longer than men to fund the same loan because they chose bigger loans, asked for more time to repay and faced lenders who preferred men-owned businesses. - **The Dark Side of Machiavellian Rhetoric: Signaling in Reward-Based Crowdfunding Performance.** Goran Calic, René Arseneault, and Maryam Ghasemaghaei. *Journal of Business Ethics*, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-021-04984-0 Main finding: In 76,847 Kickstarter projects, rhetoric of revenge, self-disclosure and intimidation hurt crowdfunding performance, ingratiation and persuasion had mixed positive effects, and betrayal rhetoric, surprisingly, helped. - **Big data for social benefits: Innovation as a mediator of the relationship between big data and corporate social performance.** Goran Calic and Maryam Ghasemaghaei. *Journal of Business Research*, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2020.11.003 Main finding: A survey of 297 North American managers suggests that firms use big data to improve corporate social performance, and that the improvement comes through organizational innovation. - **Is maximising creativity good? The importance of elaboration and internal confidence in producing creative ideas.** Goran Calic, Elaine Mosakowski, Nick Bontis, and Sébastien Hélie. *Knowledge Management Research & Practice*, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1080/14778238.2020.1730718 Main finding: A simulation of 100,000 trials of a creativity task suggests that low degrees of creativity, combined with the elaboration of conventional ideas, may lead to a greater number of creative ideas. - **From sustainability constraints to innovation: Enhancing innovation by simultaneously attending to sustainability and commercial imperatives.** Goran Calic, Anton Shevchenko, Maryam Ghasemaghaei, Nick Bontis, and Zeynep O. Tokcan. *Sustainability Accounting, Management and Policy Journal*, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1108/SAMPJ-02-2019-0084 Main finding: We argue that attending to sustainability and commercial goals at the same time creates constraints that increase the generation and implementation of creative ideas, which makes those constraints a source of new products, services and business models. - **Exploring the effect of environmental orientation on financial decisions of businesses at the bottom of the pyramid: Evidence from the microlending context.** Anton Shevchenko, Xiaodan Pan, and Goran Calic. *Business Strategy and the Environment*, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1002/bse.2476 Main finding: On a microlending platform, environmentally oriented small businesses in bottom-of-the-pyramid markets asked for more capital and more time to repay it, and they were more likely to repay. - **How multimedia shape crowdfunding outcomes: The overshadowing effect of images and videos on text in campaign information.** Jialiang Yang, Yaokuang Li, Goran Calic, and Anton Shevchenko. *Journal of Business Research*, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2020.05.008 Main finding: In 13,622 Kickstarter technology campaigns, more images and videos improved fundraising but weakened the positive effect of a longer text description. - **How signal intensity of behavioral orientations affects crowdfunding performance: The role of entrepreneurial orientation in crowdfunding business ventures.** Goran Calic and Anton Shevchenko. *Journal of Business Research*, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2020.04.060 Main finding: In 48,628 reward-based crowdfunding campaigns, signals of autonomy, innovativeness, competitive aggressiveness and risk-taking had an inverted-U-shaped relationship with performance, so they helped up to a point and then hurt. - **Subjective semantic surprise resulting from divided attention biases evaluations of an idea's creativity.** Goran Calic, Neža Shamy, Iain Kinley, Scott Watter, and Khaled Hassanein. *Scientific Reports*, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-59096-y Main finding: In 1,065 evaluations by 71 participants, distracted evaluators rated ideas as more novel, but not more useful, than focused evaluators did, and EEG and pupillometry confirmed that the distraction drew cognitive resources away from the evaluation. - **Assessing the impact of big data on firm innovation performance: Big data is not always better data.** Maryam Ghasemaghaei and Goran Calic. *Journal of Business Research*, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.09.062 Main finding: In a survey of 239 managers, data variety and velocity improved firm innovation performance, while data volume had no significant effect. - **Does big data enhance firm innovation competency? The mediating role of data-driven insights.** Maryam Ghasemaghaei and Goran Calic. *Journal of Business Research*, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.07.006 Main finding: In a survey of 280 managers, data velocity, variety and veracity improved the insight firms drew from their data, while data volume did not. - **Can big data improve firm decision quality? The role of data quality and data diagnosticity.** Maryam Ghasemaghaei and Goran Calic. *Decision Support Systems*, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dss.2019.03.008 Main finding: In survey data from 130 firms, using big data improved the quality of decisions only through data quality and data diagnosticity, with no significant direct effect. - **Creativity from paradoxical experience: A theory of how individuals achieve creativity while adopting paradoxical frames.** Goran Calic, Sébastien Hélie, Nick Bontis, and Elaine Mosakowski. *Journal of Knowledge Management*, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1108/JKM-03-2018-0223 Main finding: A computational simulation suggests that the relationship between paradoxical frames and creative output is non-monotonic, so paradoxical frames can reduce creative output in at least some cases. - **Creative sparks or paralysis traps? The effects of contradictions on creative processing and creative products.** Goran Calic and Sébastien Hélie. *Frontiers in Psychology*, 2018. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01489 Main finding: A computational model shows that contradictory demands raise creative output when they have a balanced effect on a person's search for new information and tolerance for new ideas, and that they can lower it for people who are already highly creative. - **The sustainability advantage: The positive effect of a sustainability orientation on online funding success.** Goran Calic. *Rutgers Business Review*, 2017. https://rbr.business.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/documents/rbr-020110.pdf Main finding: Sustainability-oriented ventures are more likely to reach their crowdfunding targets, helped by values shared with the crowd, endorsements by independent third parties and project creativity. - **Kicking off social entrepreneurship: How a sustainability orientation influences crowdfunding success.** Goran Calic and Elaine Mosakowski. *Journal of Management Studies*, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12201 Main finding: A sustainability orientation increases the funding success of crowdfunding projects, and project creativity and third-party endorsements partially explain the effect. - **Cultures as learning laboratories: What makes some more effective than others?** Elaine Mosakowski, Goran Calic, and P. Christopher Earley. *Academy of Management Learning & Education*, 2013. https://doi.org/10.5465/amle.2013.0149 Main finding: In a service-learning project with US military veterans with disabilities, non-US business students gained cultural intelligence, and we propose four features of a cultural setting that help: moderate cultural distance, a tight culture, low context and high moral desirability. ## Harvard Business Review articles - **Tech Companies, Nuclear Power, and the Problem of Strategic Timing.** Goran Calic and Andy Wu. *Harvard Business Review*, June 11, 2025. https://hbr.org/2025/06/tech-companies-nuclear-power-and-the-problem-of-strategic-timing Meta, Google, Amazon and Microsoft all signed nuclear power deals within a year, and the article uses those deals to examine how managers time a commitment when they cannot know when the market will be ready. - **What Elon Musk Can Learn from Steve Jobs's Return to Apple.** Andy Wu and Goran Calic. *Harvard Business Review*, December 13, 2022. https://hbr.org/2022/12/what-elon-musk-can-learn-from-steve-jobss-return-to-apple Steve Jobs carried out a difficult and controversial strategic realignment when he returned to Apple, and it offers lessons for Musk's attempt to transform Twitter. - **4 Types of Innovators Every Organization Needs.** Andy Wu, Goran Calic, and Min Basadur. *Harvard Business Review*, October 27, 2022. https://hbr.org/2022/10/4-types-of-innovators-every-organization-needs Data from 112,497 people in 84 countries show four innovation styles (generators, conceptualizers, optimizers and implementers), and each plays a role in the innovation process. - **The Challenges of Transforming Twitter.** Andy Wu and Goran Calic. *Harvard Business Review*, October 14, 2022. https://hbr.org/2022/10/the-challenges-of-transforming-twitter Five principles for making strategic changes at a legacy technology company, written as Elon Musk moved to acquire Twitter for $44 billion. - **Does Elon Musk Have a Strategy?** Andy Wu and Goran Calic. *Harvard Business Review*, July 15, 2022. https://hbr.org/2022/07/does-elon-musk-have-a-strategy Across Tesla, SpaceX, the Boring Company and his other companies, Musk's strategy is consistent in the problems he chooses to solve, in how he designs an organization and in how he mobilizes resources. Reprinted in HBR's The Year in Tech 2024. ## Harvard Business School teaching cases - **Meta's Energy Dilemma: Powering the AI Future.** Dennis Yao, Goran Calic, and Andy Wu. *Harvard Business School Case 725-457*, 2025. https://store.hbr.org/product/meta-s-energy-dilemma-powering-the-ai-future/725457 Meta's AI strategy depends on electricity the company does not yet control, and the case asks how it should secure power for data centres that could lift its demand beyond 4 GW by the early 2030s. - **Twitter Turnaround and Elon Musk.** Andy Wu and Goran Calic. *Harvard Business School Case 723-418*, 2023. https://store.hbr.org/product/twitter-turnaround-and-elon-musk/723418 The case opens in October 2022, when Elon Musk has taken Twitter private and has to decide on short-term actions and a long-term strategy to turn the company around. ## Op-eds and essays - **Ontario's $15-billion nuclear mirage.** Leonard Waverman and Goran Calic. *The Hub*, August 26, 2026. https://thehub.ca/2026/08/26/ontarios-15-billion-nuclear-mirage/ Ontario claimed that an Indigenous equity stake in the Darlington small modular reactor project would save ratepayers up to $15 billion, and the article shows that the province gave no arithmetic to support the number. - **France's nuclear reactors are running hot and still keeping the lights on.** Goran Calic and Michael Tadrous. *The Conversation*, August 20, 2026. https://theconversation.com/frances-nuclear-reactors-are-running-hot-and-still-keeping-the-lights-on-289694 Heatwave curtailments at French riverside reactors come from a narrow, well-understood legal limit on how warm the water returned to the river may be. - **AI is consuming more power than the grid can handle — nuclear might be the answer.** Goran Calic and Michael Tadrous. *The Conversation*, June 23, 2025. https://theconversation.com/ai-is-consuming-more-power-than-the-grid-can-handle-nuclear-might-be-the-answer-258677 AI's demand for electricity is driving new partnerships between technology companies and nuclear operators. - **Twitter was an unprofitable mess long before Elon Musk – he might be its only lifeline.** Goran Calic. *The Globe and Mail*, November 29, 2022. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/commentary/article-twitter-was-an-unprofitable-mess-long-before-elon-musk-he-might-be-its/ Musk's first weeks at Twitter were a public demonstration of the way he runs his other businesses. - **What's your Creative Profile? And why knowing it matters.** Goran Calic and Min Basadur. *Medium*, December 23, 2021. https://gorancalic.medium.com/whats-your-creativity-style-and-why-knowing-it-matters-b4b84dac8aff People prefer to solve problems in different ways, and knowing a collaborator's Creative Profile makes it easier to be creative with them. - **Creativity Not Wanted.** Goran Calic. *Medium*, September 21, 2021. https://gorancalic.medium.com/creativity-not-wanted-d7adc0ba642b Most people say they value creativity, yet a consistent finding in creativity research is that people reject creative ideas and dislike creative people. - **Goran Calic's Top 3 Tips for how to foster creativity.** Goran Calic. *DeGroote School of Business*, April 18, 2017. https://degroote.mcmaster.ca/articles/goran-calics-top-3-tips-foster-creativity/ Three tips for managers, beginning with the advice to avoid maximizing creativity, because more creativity also brings more indecision. ## Book chapters - **From Coal to Clean: What Germany Can Learn from Ontario.** Goran Calic. *Novel Nuclear Technologies: Towards a Greenhouse Gas-Free Basic Energy Supply, TUM.University Press*, 2025. https://doi.org/10.14459/2025md1766743 - **Organizational development.** Min Basadur, Tim Basadur, and Goran Calic. *Handbook of Organizational Creativity (2nd ed.), Academic Press*, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-323-91841-1.00015-4 - **From Sustainability Constraints to Creative Action: How Management Can Enhance Organizational Innovation.** Goran Calic and Maryam Ghasemaghaei. *Leveraging Constraints for Innovation, Wiley*, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119390299.ch1 - **Crowdfunding.** Goran Calic. *The SAGE Encyclopedia of the Internet, SAGE Publications*, 2018. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781473960367.n40 - **A Cultural Perspective on Organizational Citizenship Behavior.** P. Christopher Earley and Goran Calic. *The Oxford Handbook of Organizational Citizenship Behavior, Oxford University Press*, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190219000.013.29 ## Substack essays (full text on this site) - [China in the Chokehold](https://gorancalic.com/llm/essays/2026-05-14-china-in-the-chokehold.md), May 14, 2026 - [Meet Tritium: Canada’s Quiet Monopoly on the Fuel for Fusion](https://gorancalic.com/llm/essays/2026-04-07-meet-tritium-canadas-quiet-monopoly.md), April 7, 2026 - [Why All Management Is Energy Management](https://gorancalic.com/llm/essays/2026-03-16-why-all-management-is-energy-management.md), March 16, 2026 - [Not about Climate Change, This New Nuclear Renaissance is Culturally Driven](https://gorancalic.com/llm/essays/2026-03-10-not-about-climate-change-this-new.md), March 10, 2026 - [Why Energy Policy is Actually About Culture](https://gorancalic.com/llm/essays/2026-01-10-why-energy-policy-is-actually-about.md), January 10, 2026 - [We Outsourced Risk — and Lost Progress](https://gorancalic.com/llm/essays/2025-11-27-we-outsourced-risk-and-lost-progress.md), November 27, 2025 - [The Psychology of Power: Why We Fear the Word “Nuclear”](https://gorancalic.com/llm/essays/2025-11-13-the-psychology-of-power-why-we-fear.md), November 13, 2025 - [If you live in Ontario, your electricity bill just went up 29%](https://gorancalic.com/llm/essays/2025-11-05-if-you-live-in-ontario-your-electricity.md), November 5, 2025 - [Issue #28: How Rooftop Solar Panels Redistribute Income from the Poor to the Rich. And why they Might Be a Bad Deal — Even for the Rich.](https://gorancalic.com/llm/essays/2025-10-10-issue-28-how-rooftop-solar-panels.md), October 10, 2025 - [Issue #27: Long Construction Times Can Lead to Unemployment](https://gorancalic.com/llm/essays/2025-09-24-issue-27-long-construction-times.md), September 24, 2025 - [Issue #26: Record Demand, Cheaper Gas, and Nuclear’s Rising Role](https://gorancalic.com/llm/essays/2025-09-16-issue-26-record-demand-cheaper-gas.md), September 16, 2025 - [Issue #25: Gas Surges, Renewables Stall, Nuclear Rises](https://gorancalic.com/llm/essays/2025-09-09-issue-25-gas-surges-renewables-stall.md), September 9, 2025 - [Issue #24: The Hidden Cost of Risk in LCOE Calculations](https://gorancalic.com/llm/essays/2025-09-02-issue-24-the-hidden-cost-of-risk.md), September 2, 2025 - [Issue #23: AI’s Electricity Shock: How Data Centers Are Rewriting the U.S. Grid](https://gorancalic.com/llm/essays/2025-08-26-ais-electricity-shock-how-data-centers.md), August 26, 2025 - [AI’s Power Diet, Canada’s Nuclear Upside, and the Picks and Shovels to Build It](https://gorancalic.com/llm/essays/2025-08-22-ais-power-diet-canadas-nuclear-upside-d5c.md), August 22, 2025 - [Issue #22: The Hidden Cost of Renewables, Nuclear Expansion in India, and Google's SMR Bet](https://gorancalic.com/llm/essays/2025-08-19-issue-22-the-hidden-cost-of-renewables.md), August 19, 2025 - [AI Demos, Workforce Math, and Answering Nuclear’s Critics](https://gorancalic.com/llm/essays/2025-08-18-ai-demos-workforce-math-and-answering-bdc.md), August 18, 2025 - [Issue #21: Powering the AI Era - Nuclear, Offshore Wind, and Grid Strategies Take Center Stage](https://gorancalic.com/llm/essays/2025-08-11-issue-21-powering-the-ai-era-nuclear.md), August 11, 2025 - [Golf Cutbacks, Tabletop Therapy, and Dominion’s Offshore Wind Math](https://gorancalic.com/llm/essays/2025-08-08-golf-cutbacks-tabletop-therapy-and-ba1.md), August 8, 2025 - [Issue #20: New Deals, New Risks, New Momentum in Nuclear](https://gorancalic.com/llm/essays/2025-08-04-issue-20-new-deals-new-risks-new.md), August 4, 2025 - [Supply-Chain Bottlenecks, Codification Creep, and Mission-Driven Incentives](https://gorancalic.com/llm/essays/2025-08-01-supply-chain-bottlenecks-codification-6b8.md), August 1, 2025 - [Issue #19: New Sites, Old Reactors, and the SMR Wave](https://gorancalic.com/llm/essays/2025-07-30-issue-19-new-sites-old-reactors-and.md), July 30, 2025 - [Airport Ammo, Meta’s Energy Dilemma, and Launching The Business of Nuclear](https://gorancalic.com/llm/essays/2025-07-25-airport-ammo-metas-energy-dilemma-9bf.md), July 25, 2025 ## Podcast - The Atomic Exchange Podcast, on energy strategy, nuclear power and clean-technology commercialization: https://open.spotify.com/show/642RINot7OExjbJwcMQrKV --- Source: https://gorancalic.com/llm/advising.md # Advising and executive education with Goran Calic I teach strategy, innovation and generative AI to boards and executives in Canada, the United States and Latin America. I am the Endowed Chair in Entrepreneurial Leadership at McMaster University's DeGroote School of Business, and I work directly with boards and leadership teams on strategic clarity, competitive advantage, and managing change. ## Formats - **Series.** Multi-session programs that build a leadership team's strategic capability over months. - **Sessions.** Half-day to multi-day workshops tailored to your team's real decisions. - **Keynotes.** Talks and board briefings on strategy, innovation, and generative AI. ## Topics - **Strategy.** What turns a set of choices into a strategy, and what makes that strategy effective? I study how leaders build advantage through simple, stable, and differentiated choices. - **Innovation.** Organizations say they want creativity. Research shows they systematically reject it. I study why some organizations are more innovative than others, and why the most creative people are often the least rewarded. - **Generative AI.** AI hasn't changed what strategy is. It has changed who can execute it. I help boards and executives separate the myths from the real strategic implications of generative AI. - **Technology and energy.** I study the organizational challenges that new technologies create, from generative AI to nuclear power. ## How the sessions run I like to teach through decisions that don't have a lookup answer: buying a competitor you can't fully value, backing a venture on gut feel, or signing a long contract for an unproven technology. People remember what they experience, so a lot of my teaching is hands-on: - cases, including the two I wrote for Harvard Business School with Andy Wu, and with Dennis Yao and Andy Wu ("Twitter Turnaround and Elon Musk" and "Meta's Energy Dilemma: Powering the AI Future"); - simulations, such as a day-long airline game and a resource auction built around an egg-drop challenge; - sessions where teams use AI agents to plan and build a working web application. ## Organizations I have worked with BDO Canada, Farm Credit Council Services, Coca-Cola FEMSA, Midwest Home Equity Group, Home Hardware, Land O'Lakes, Leonnova, Fairmont Consulting Group and The Globe and Mail are some of them. My industry ties are primarily related to my executive teaching, and they go from consumer goods to utilities to consulting. I don't discuss the specifics of those relationships. ## Booking Speaking, advisory, research, and media inquiries are welcome. Please email calicg@mcmaster.ca. --- Source: https://gorancalic.com/llm/faq.md # Questions and answers with Goran Calic These are my own answers to questions I am often asked. The research answers give the study and the numbers behind each claim, and the full list of papers is at https://gorancalic.com/llm/publications.md. ## Who is Goran Calic? I am the Endowed Chair in Entrepreneurial Leadership and an Associate Professor of Strategic Management at McMaster University's DeGroote School of Business in Hamilton, Canada. I study how organizations make consequential decisions under uncertainty, and what leaders can do about it. I teach in McMaster's MBA and Executive Education programs, and work directly with boards and leadership teams on strategic clarity, competitive advantage, and managing change. ## What is the central question in your research? Everything I work on comes back to one question: how do new ideas turn into strategic results when nobody can know in advance how things will turn out? Managers still commit capital, entrepreneurs still pitch ventures, and organizations still bet on new technologies, even when there is no track record to learn from. I want to understand what lets them act well anyway. ## What makes a strategy good? I study how leaders build advantage through simple, stable, and differentiated choices. Eric van den Steen, a professor at Harvard Business School, offered what I think is the best formal definition of strategy to date: a small set of choices that optimally guide (or force) other choices. Strategy must be a small set of choices, and those choices must guide the rest of the organization. ## Why do organizations reject creative ideas? Asked whether they value creativity, most people answer yes. Yet a consistent finding in creativity research is that people reject creative ideas and dislike creative people. Part of the reason is that creativity results in more ideas, but it also increases uncertainty, because more viable alternatives exist. Novel ideas are also hard to judge. In one of our experiments (Scientific Reports, 2020), 71 participants made 1,065 evaluations of ideas, and the distracted evaluators rated the same ideas as more novel, but not more useful, than the focused evaluators did. I wrote about the wider evidence in "Creativity Not Wanted" (https://gorancalic.medium.com/creativity-not-wanted-d7adc0ba642b). ## What is the difference between creativity and innovation? Innovation results from two component processes: the generation of ideas, which is creativity, and their implementation, which is the actual introduction of change. The two have been studied in separate academic traditions. Creativity research is rooted in psychology and focuses on micro-level processes, while innovation research is grounded in economics, management science and organization theory and emphasizes macro-level dynamics. Our 2026 article in Research Policy maps both fields and proposes ways to connect them. ## Is generative AI more creative than people? In our tests, ChatGPT-4o, DeepSeek-V3 and Gemini 2.0 all outperformed 46 human participants on a divergent thinking task and on a convergent thinking task (Scientific Reports, 2025). I read that result with care, because it also calls into question whether current creativity assessments suit generative AI. In a second study of nine chatbots (AI & Society, 2025), the originality of ideas did not change with their order within a response, and repeated prompting for more ideas made a difference for only one model, DeepSeek-V3. ## What has generative AI changed about strategy? AI hasn't changed what strategy is. It has changed who can execute it. I help boards and executives separate the myths from the real strategic implications of generative AI. ## Does more data lead to better decisions? More data is not automatically better. What matters is whether it is diagnostic for the decision in front of you. In a survey of 239 managers, data variety and velocity improved firm innovation performance, while data volume had no significant effect (Journal of Business Research, 2020). In survey data from 130 firms, using big data improved the quality of decisions only through data quality and data diagnosticity (Decision Support Systems, 2019). ## What makes a crowdfunding campaign succeed? Funders reward some signals and punish others, and they read a venture as a whole package, not one attribute at a time. In 1,395 Kickstarter campaigns we found four successful combinations of signals, which raised about 500% above the funding goal, and two failing ones, which raised about 4% of it (Strategic Management Journal, 2025). Narratives were not sufficient unless they were backed by signals of quality and of embeddedness in the crowdfunding community. In earlier work, a sustainability orientation increased the funding success of crowdfunding projects (Journal of Management Studies, 2016). ## Can nuclear power stay reliable in a warming, water-constrained world? The evidence says it can. We compiled a global inventory of weather-linked nuclear curtailments from 2003 to 2022, and across more than 500 reactor-years the curtailments totalled 0.6% of the affected reactors' generation and never exceeded 1.3% in any national fleet (Energy Policy, 2026). A 15 °C rise in cooling-water temperature reduces the output of a 1.45 GW pressurized water reactor by about 6%. Tower retrofits, dry cooling and proactive outage scheduling have already cut French river-fleet curtailment losses from 5.5 TWh in 2003 to 0.5 TWh in 2022. Nuclear power's water challenge is technical and manageable. ## Why are technology companies buying nuclear power? Generative AI needs a large and steady supply of electricity. Meta signed a 20-year deal with Constellation Energy for power from an Illinois reactor, Google signed a deal with Kairos Power, Amazon partnered with Energy Northwest and Dominion Energy, and Microsoft committed to a 20-year deal to restart Unit 1 of Three Mile Island. Andy Wu and I wrote about these deals as a problem of strategic timing in Harvard Business Review (https://hbr.org/2025/06/tech-companies-nuclear-power-and-the-problem-of-strategic-timing), and Dennis Yao, Andy Wu and I wrote the Harvard Business School case "Meta's Energy Dilemma: Powering the AI Future". ## What are you working on now? Right now I'm working on a number of projects. One group uses the energy industry as an empirical context for strategic management questions. A really fun project uses the population of nuclear power plant construction projects to see how strategic commitments affect organizational performance. Another set of projects measures AI's capacity to make strategic decisions. Here we develop a benchmark and run a series of experiments looking at how variations in market rules affect strategic decisions. In the context of AI, we also look at how creative AI can be in strategic decision-making, and whether that is detrimental or good for general performance and for innovative performance. ## How do you teach? I think respect in a classroom has to run both ways, and the instructor has to earn it. So I never take a student's interest for granted. I rebuild cases and exercises around problems that are live right now, and I hold students to a high standard, which means weak arguments get challenged. I like to teach through decisions that don't have a lookup answer: buying a competitor you can't fully value, backing a venture on gut feel, or signing a long contract for an unproven technology. The best cases split the room about evenly. I use quick polls before class and cold calls during it, so that everyone has to defend a position. My job is to let the argument play out and then show why strategy research would have predicted the disagreement. Students leave with a way of reasoning they can carry into any industry. ## Do you work with companies and boards? I teach strategy, innovation and generative AI to boards and executives in Canada, the United States and Latin America. The formats are multi-session programs over months, half-day to multi-day workshops, and keynotes and board briefings. The details are at https://gorancalic.com/llm/advising.md, and inquiries can go to calicg@mcmaster.ca. ## How do you use AI in your own work? I've integrated AI into every one of my workflows, including my research writing. AI is exceptionally helpful for the many things that can be automated, and many can be. But it also creates new tasks and new requirements. I find myself reading and editing much more now. So while AI is useful, I really don't believe it's close to replacing research at the moment. ## What is GoranAI? GoranAI is a chatbot at https://gorancalic.com/ask that answers in my voice, drawing on my published work. The page says plainly that this is an AI built on my public writing and that it can be wrong. What I wanted was a way for the papers and essays to be answerable. There is a research interest underneath it too: I study generative AI, and building one on my own writing was a way to watch the technology up close, warts included. ## Which languages do you work in? I work professionally in German, and I'm fluent in English and Croatian. I studied at the University of Vienna and worked for several years at Georgsmarienhütte in Germany. ## What is the best advice you give students? Develop an identity, and build capabilities that make you irreplaceable. Finding something you're passionate about is really important for this, because it allows you to go deep and become unique. ## Which book do you recommend? *More and More and More: An All-Consuming History of Energy* by Jean-Baptiste Fressoz. --- Source: https://gorancalic.com/llm/essays/2026-05-14-china-in-the-chokehold.md # China in the Chokehold Published on Goran Calic's Substack on May 14, 2026. Original: https://gorancalic.substack.com/p/china-in-the-chokehold *A strategic optionality framework for thinking about energy vulnerability and why Beijing is exercising twenty years of option premiums right now* ## The Paradox Two facts about China feel unrelated: > · China is the world’s largest crude oil importer, drawing in 11.5 million barrels every day. · China is also the world’s largest investor in clean energy, operating more nuclear, wind, and solar capacity than the United States and India combined They are related. The second item (world leader in non-fossil fuel energy) is a strategic option against the risk exposure created by the first (the world’s fossil fuel imports). In strategy, we call that strategic optionality. The below analysis will reveal why China has been paying for these strategic options and how they include more than just renewables and EVs (they also include pipelines). This analysis highlights strategic options the West, particularly Europe, has not taken and why it is now paying the price. For twenty years, Beijing has been paying an option premium against a moment exactly like the one unfolding in the Strait of Hormuz right now. In a recent article, The *Telegraph* called it a chokehold (“Trump’s war on Iran has China in a chokehold”). CNN calls it the first real test of China’s energy fortress (“China’s energy fortress was built to withstand just this type of oil shock”). All of them are describing the same thing: the strategic options that China bought in 2003 are being exercised in 2026. ## The Worst Case Beijing Has Been Pricing For China imports 11.5 million barrels of crude every day. About half of those barrels cross the Strait of Hormuz. A serious disruption of Hormuz traffic is the worst case scenario Beijing’s planners have lived with for over twenty years. In 2026, for the first time, that risk has materialized. The blockade of the Strait has taken approximately 50% of China’s pre-March oil imports offline. Those imports will be costly to replace. For most importers, the price of Brent has nearly doubled. For China, the price has increased more. Until the blockade, China had been receiving Venezuelan oil at a $10/barrel discount and Iranian oil at an even greater $20/barrel discount through the dark-fleet ecosystem. Those discounted barrels are no longer flowing. China must replace them at spot prices, on top of the doubled Brent. My rough estimate is that the direct cost to Chinese oil refineries is greater than $1B/day. Many are now closed for early maintenance—chiefly the “teapots,” the independent refineries built to process heavy sanctioned crude. With the dark-fleet flow cut off, they have no economic feedstock. The downstream economic costs in manufacturing are multiples of the $1B/day. Added together, the loses at refineries and losses at downstream manufacturing plants reliant on the oil and its byproducts have put China in a chokehold. While these costs certainly are significant, they could have been worse. China has prepared for this. ## Strategic Optionality In financial markets, an option is the right—but not the obligation—to take an action. Buyers of these options (in this case China) pay a premium for that right. The premium is what you pay for the choice to exercise an alternative course of action, which is separate from the action you may or may not eventually take. In effect, options act like insurance against some risk. (E.g., should you get into a fender-bender, you have the option, but not the obligation, to file an insurance claim.) A country that builds redundant pipelines, oversized strategic petroleum reserves, swappable refining capacity, and demand-side substitution at scale (e.g., wind, solar, EVs that reduces the demand for oil) is paying an option premium against the day that its “needed” oil supply is disrupted by someone else’s deliberate action. Under an efficiency model, redunancy looks wasteful. Most Western nations, particularly Europe, have adopted that efficiency framework—and they have been paying the price since the Ukraine war. Under an optionality model, those dollars are buying a specific, priceable thing: the right to keep operating when an adversary tries to close a door on your oil supply. China’s two decades of energy infrastructure spending makes no sense as efficiency. It makes complete sense as option-buying. Specifically, the premium has bought at least three distinct rights: Each option type has a different price and a different exercise condition. ### Pipeline Routing: ~$24B/year of insurance held free Roughly 1.3M bpd flows into China outside any maritime chokepoint: ESPO from Russia (~700k bpd), the Myanmar pipelines (~400k bpd), and Central Asian inflows (~200k bpd-equivalent). With spot Brent now around $100/bbl, these barrels are still arriving at long-locked contract prices roughly $50 below market. > ***1.3B bpd x ~$50/bbl spread x 365 days ≈ $24B billion / year of avoided crisis premiums*** That option is being held by Beijing at effectively zero marginal cost today because those pipelines already exist. The premium was paid in pipeline capex a decade ago. ### Strategic Reserves: ~$48B of mark-to-market option value 1.2 billion barrels at $100/bbl is roughly $120 billion of replacement value sitting in storage. The option value of the reserve isn’t the storage itself—it’s the spread between the price it was filled at (much cheaper than $100/bbl) and the price an alternative purchase would cost in a crisis. At current Brent prices of ~$100, China draws on barrels acquired at far lower averaged cost. Call the spread $40/bbl across the reservoir: > ***1.2B bbl x ~$40/bbl spread ≈ $48B of latent option value*** ### Demand Destruction (EVs): ~$13.5B/year of oil simply not bought China has 30M+ pure-battery EVs on its roads (44M counting plug-in hybrids). A China-specific oil-displacement estimate is roughly 4.5 barrels per BEV per year—about half the US figure, reflecting shorter trip distances and smaller cars. That’s 135M barrels of demand that no longer exists: > ***30M BEVs x ~4.5 bbl/yr x 100/bbl ≈ $13.5B / year of imports avoided*** ### Demand Destruction (Wind + Solar): ~$190B/year of oil-equivalent energy China has an enormous 1.84 TW of grid-connected wind and solar capacity and is home to two-thirds of the world’s solar and wind power in construction. At a 20% capacity factor, that delivers ~3,200 TWh of electricity per year. Converted at standard oil-equivalent (1 barrel ≈ 1.7 MWh): > ***3,200 TWh ÷ 1.7 MWh/bbl ≈ 1.9B bbl of oil-equivalent / year of energy substitution*** Every TWh of non-fossil generation is a TWh of fossil capacity that can be redirected toward higher-value uses, including freeing oil and gas for transport and petrochemicals during a chokepoint event. > ***At $100/bbl that’s $190B / year of oil-equivalent demand that must not be imported*** ### The rough total China’s accumulated option position is generating something on the order of $227B per year of value—and that’s before the strategic petrolium reserve has been drawn down. For context: the rough premium paid over twenty years—pipelines, SPR build-out, EV subsidies, renewables, the nuclear program—runs perhaps $2T in cumulative capex (exact numbers are hard to find) . At the current dividend rate (11.35%), the program is paying itself back inside 8.81 years from the running annual benefit alone. ### The cost of not buying options Europe did the opposite of optionality—and worse, sold the options it already held. Through the 2010s, it consolidated gas dependence onto a single pipeline supplier, shuttered paid-for nuclear capacity in Germany’s Energiewende phaseout, and underbuilt LNG import terminals. When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, there were no options to exercise. Europe paid spot prices that spiked above 10x their pre-crisis range (inflation), rationed industrial gas (industry destruction), and ended up routing payments to Moscow anyway through refined-product laundering via India and Turkey (funded Russia anyway). The Ukraine crisis (analogous to China’s Iran crisis) was not absorbed by Europe’s structure, instead it was multiplied through it. Every redundancy that might have dampened the shock had been retired as inefficient. German industrial output in energy-intensive sectors has not recovered four years later. That is the bill for treating optionality as waste. One caveat on the framing before closing: Europe positions renewables as energy security, which they certainly can be (China is doing this), but they are not being deployed as options in Europe. Wind and solar that retire the fossil capacity they replace are substitutions, not hedges, and a substitution without a fallback *creates *its own single-supplier risk. China’s renewables sit on top of its thermal, nuclear, and hydro base; Europe is trying to position its renewables as the base. Until next time, Goran --- Source: https://gorancalic.com/llm/essays/2026-04-07-meet-tritium-canadas-quiet-monopoly.md # Meet Tritium: Canada’s Quiet Monopoly on the Fuel for Fusion Published on Goran Calic's Substack on April 7, 2026. Original: https://gorancalic.substack.com/p/meet-tritium-canadas-quiet-monopoly *Image Source: https://inspenet.com/* Inside the Darlington Nuclear Generating Station in Clarington, Ontario, sits the world’s largest tritium processing facility. Tritium — a rare hydrogen isotope with a half-life of just 12.3 years — is produced as a by-product of Canada’s CANDU heavy-water reactor system. Ontario Power Generation is North America’s only non-military supplier. The province holds the majority of the world’s commercial tritium supply. South Korea extracts smaller quantities at its Wolsung CANDU plant, and Romania is building extraction capacity at Cernavoda — but Canada dominates production. One of us (Goran) teaches the VRIO framework in his MBA strategy courses at McMaster and to executive leaders, and tritium is one a clean real-world example of the concept. Most Canadians have never heard of tritium. But if fusion energy delivers on its promise over the next two decades, tritium could become one of the most strategically valuable substances on earth. The question is whether Canada will treat that advantage like a strategic resource, or just any resource. #### **The Fusion Boom Is No Longer Hypothetical** For a long time, fusion seemed too distant to take seriously. That is changing. Commercial entities are multiplying, governments are investing billions, and supply chains are already being built around the assumption that fusion energy is coming. The IAEA suggests that global private investment in fusion has surpassed US 10 billion dollars, as different facilities achieve fusion ignitions for increasing amounts of time. In Ontario, the government has promised 19.5 million dollars to set up the Centre for Fusion Energy. And the early trade deals are already materializing. In 2025, Ontario and the UK announced a clean energy partnership under which OPG-supplied tritium would support UK fusion research. #### **A Resource Is Not a Strategy** But possessing a resource does not automatically make it strategic. In strategy, we use the VRIO framework to assess whether a resource creates sustained competitive advantage. A resource must be Valuable, Rare, hard to Imitate, and supported by Organization. Canadian tritium clearly meets the first three criteria. **VRIO Analysis: Canadian Tritium** That fourth criterion — **Organization** — is where resources become strategic. It requires deliberate investment in export relationships, processing capacity, regulatory expertise, and industrial partnerships. Most importantly, it requires a vision of the future, and how a strategy can bridge the gap between now and that vision of the future. Consider the cautionary tale of North Sea oil. In the 1970s, both Britain and Norway discovered oil deposits off their coasts. Britain spent the revenues on short-term fiscal needs. Norway took a different path, converting petroleum wealth into its Government Pension Fund — now worth roughly NOK 21.3 trillion. Both countries face declining North Sea output. But Norway built lasting national capital; Britain has far less to show for its windfall. The used resource was the same but the strategy was not. #### **The Window Won’t Stay Open** Tritium should not be viewed simply as a by-product to be sold opportunistically while fusion remains “someday” technology. It should be treated with potential—as an early lever in a growing global industry supported by industry and government. That means building export relationships, processing and handling capacity, regulatory expertise, and industrial partnerships around a resource the world will increasingly need. Here is a fact that should focus the mind: the entire global stockpile of commercial tritium is roughly 20 kilograms. Even pooling all of it may not be enough to fuel a fleet of commercial fusion reactors during their startup phase. Eventually, fusion systems are designed to breed their own tritium through lithium blankets—but that technology remains unproven at commercial scale, and the timeline for fusion commercialization itself is uncertain. Until both challenges are resolved, Canada has a rare chance to occupy a critical position in an emerging energy economy. In March 2026, oil markets were rattled again by disruption around the Strait of Hormuz. Brent crude rose above $112 as flows carrying a fifth of global crude were restricted. Crises like these are reminders that energy security is not abstract—it is the most concrete form of national strategy. Canada has a rare head start in the potential tritium energy economy. The question is not whether the world will need tritium. It is whether Canada will have built a strategy around it if does. --- Source: https://gorancalic.com/llm/essays/2026-03-16-why-all-management-is-energy-management.md # Why All Management Is Energy Management Published on Goran Calic's Substack on March 16, 2026. Original: https://gorancalic.substack.com/p/why-all-management-is-energy-management Last week in Denver, I told a room full of Farm Credit directors—cattle ranchers, grain farmers, dairy operators, a retired CFO—that they are energy managers. They looked skeptical. Then I showed them the math. Roughly 50% of all global food production depends on artificial fertilizers—created primarily from natural gas. About 30% of all global energy production flows into the agrifood system—farm-to-fork. From the natural gas that feeds the Haber-Bosch process (which converts atmospheric nitrogen into the fertilizer that makes modern agriculture possible) to the diesel in the combine to the refrigeration on the truck—*farming is an energy conversion business*. Every person in that room was in the business of turning sunlight, fossil fuels, and soil chemistry into calories. I am not sure they thought about it quite that way before. But I wanted them to see something I believed was important. I wanted them to see that management—all management—is fundamentally about managing energy. #### **Boltzmann’s Insight** Ludwig Boltzmann, one of the founders of thermodynamics, called energy the *Kampfobjekt*—”the object of struggle”. For Boltzmann, the story of all living systems was a story of competition for usable energy. Erwin Schrödinger, the Nobel physicist, put it even more directly: “What an organism feeds upon is free energy.” These are physics insights, but they’re also economics — Lionel Robbins defined the whole discipline as the study of how scarce resources are used to attain sought-after ends. Energy is the most fundamental resource of all. Consider the history of food production. In 3150 BC, it took roughly 50 hours of human labor to produce two loaves of bread, and the land supported about 1.3 people per hectare. By 1700, better tools and techniques brought that down to 10 minutes per two loaves, with about 3 people per hectare. By 2019, it takes approximately 2 seconds and the land supports about 10 people per hectare. That progression—from 50 hours to 2 seconds—didn’t happen by accident. It happened because people figured out how to manage scarce energy more effectively to attain a sought-after end. Better plows. Crop rotation. The steam engine. The Haber-Bosch process. Mechanized harvesting. Precision agriculture. Each breakthrough was a way of doing more with less energy, or of converting energy from one form to another more efficiently. In 1800, the average person consumed roughly the same amount of energy as a Roman citizen. Today, it’s 20 to 30 times that. The difference is better management. Specifically, it’s the management of energy flows through systems of increasing complexity. #### **Strategy as Energy Conservation** Eric van den Steen, a professor at Harvard Business School, offered what I think is the best formal definition of strategy to date: *a small set of choices that optimally guide (or force) other choices.* Three things matter in that definition. Strategy must be a *small* set of choices. Those choices must *guide* the rest of the organization. And they must be powerful enough to *force* the behavior of competitors. Here is what I want you to notice: *a good strategy conserves organizational energy*. When Herb Kelleher, the longest-serving CEO of Southwest Airlines, was asked about his company’s strategy, he didn’t hand over a 50-page document. He told a story. Someone from marketing comes into your office and says her surveys show passengers might enjoy a light entrée on the Houston to Las Vegas flight. All we offer is peanuts. She thinks a nice chicken Caesar salad would be popular. What do you say? You say: “Will adding that chicken Caesar salad make us THE low-fare airline from Houston to Las Vegas? Because if it doesn’t help us become the unchallenged low-fare airline, we’re not serving any damn chicken salad.” That story *is* the strategy. And what it does—its real function—is eliminate thousands of downstream decisions that would otherwise consume organizational energy. Every employee at Southwest, from the gate agent to the procurement officer, could make choices without asking Herb Kelleher what to do. Kelleher didn’t call it that, but what he built was an energy-efficient organization. In the sense that nobody wasted time figuring out what mattered. A complex strategy, by contrast, is organizational entropy. If people can’t remember it, they can’t use it to make decisions. If they can’t use it to make decisions, they have to escalate. Every escalation is wasted energy—time, attention, and resources spent on coordination that a clearer strategy would have made unnecessary. This is why the best strategies are simple, different, and sticky. Simple so they can be communicated. Different so they actually constrain choices (a strategy that could apply to any company constrains nothing). And sticky—told as stories, not written as documents—so they can be remembered and repeated. #### **The Cost of Strategic Entropy** After the session, I shared a case study with the participants as a take-home reading. It illustrates this effect perfectly. It’s the story of two California rice cooperatives—the Rice Growers Association (RGA) and the Farmers’ Rice Cooperative (FRC)—that once operated side by side in the Central Valley, serving many of the same growers. RGA was once dominant. At its peak, it handled more than 70% of California’s total rice crop. By August 2000, it was dissolved. FRC, which started as a small breakaway group in 1944 with just 60 members, grew steadily to over 1,350 members and thrived. What happened? Entropy. Lots of wasted energy. RGA scattered its energy. It bought a shipping vessel—the CalRice Transport—that was plagued by mechanical problems and legal disputes. It attempted a pivot from bulk rice processing to branded consumer products, a move that required enormous capital investment and took the cooperative into direct competition with established brands like Uncle Ben’s and Mahatma that had massive advertising budgets. It pursued international shipping, niche marketing, even a biotech partnership. Each move was individually defensible. Together, they were not—pulling the organization in multiple directions, draining capital, and confusing members about what the cooperative actually did. FRC did the opposite. It became the best bulk rice processor in California. Period. It focused on providing higher returns to its membership. It invested in modern milling equipment, established direct relationships with major foreign buyers, and kept its operations lean. FRC’s strategy was stable, simple, and understood by its entire membership. *Source: RGA and FRC Annual Reports, 1979–1991* The point of the case isn’t the specific bad decisions — the shipping vessel, the branded products strategy, the legal battles. The deeper lesson is about entropy. Every strategic pivot at RGA prevented organizational energy from doing useful work. Instead, it dissipated across a variety of objectives, with enormous losses between each transformation. One or two such pivots might not have leaked enough energy to matter. But together, the cooperative simply didn’t have the resources to sustain them. Every change in direction required new capabilities, new investments, new explanations to members about why the plan had changed again. And every dollar spent on one direction was a dollar unavailable for another. The strategic choices didn’t just fail individually. They failed *systemically*, because they created entropy—disorder, unpredictability, waste—in an organization that needed focus. #### **What Energy Teaches Us About Organizations** I started the Denver session with Boltzmann and Schrödinger because I wanted those directors to see that the principles governing their farms are the same principles governing their boardrooms. On the farm, you manage energy flows—sunlight into biomass, feed into livestock, diesel into harvesting capacity. The farms that thrive are the ones that convert energy efficiently, with minimal waste. In the boardroom, you manage a different kind of energy—human attention, capital, time, organizational focus. The organizations that thrive are the ones that convert those resources into performance with minimal waste. And the mechanism for doing that is strategy: the smallest set of choices that eliminates the need for all the other choices that would otherwise drain the system. A physicist would say that living systems fight entropy by importing free energy and exporting disorder. An organization does the same thing. A good strategy imports clarity and exports confusion. Kelleher’s chicken salad test is an entropy filter. Every question that came through his door was tested against a single criterion, and the ones that didn’t pass were rejected instantly. No committee. No analysis. No wasted energy. The strategy did the work. Until next time, Goran --- Source: https://gorancalic.com/llm/essays/2026-03-10-not-about-climate-change-this-new.md # Not about Climate Change, This New Nuclear Renaissance is Culturally Driven Published on Goran Calic's Substack on March 10, 2026. Original: https://gorancalic.substack.com/p/not-about-climate-change-this-new *Even with calls for carbon-free energy expansion, nuclear energy's newfound popularity is not about climate change.* In the early 2000s, the term “nuclear renaissance” became popular. Several publications explained the growing momentum behind nuclear power through the lens of climate change: In 2005, Wired Magazine heralded “green” atomic energy as a tool to help stop global warming, and a 2006 Scientific American article laid out the nuclear “option” as a plan to stave off climate change, due to nuclear’s zero emission energy production. These works represent a popular sentiment emerging currently: nuclear energy is necessary because it is green, and its viability is directly tied to the need to address climate change. We don’t believe this to be true. The environmental case advanced for nuclear energy was not unique to nuclear in the 2000s, nor is it unique today; it was equally applicable to renewables. The operational carbon emissions tied to wind, solar and hydro are 0, just as they are for nuclear. The green justification for nuclear power’s renaissance therefore relies on a technical capability (0 carbon emission during electricity production) that is *not unique* to nuclear. *Solar panels and wind turbines share nuclear's defining 'green' credential: zero operational carbon emissions during electricity production." Credit: National Grid Group* Why should we build nuclear power plants now when we could just as well build wind, solar, geothermal, and hydro? (Sometimes more quickly and at lower cost.) Indeed, these are the results one of us (Goran) found in research (with Anton Shevchenko from Concordia) on the stigmatization against nuclear energy. By analysing thousands of mainstream articles on nuclear energy, we found that acceptance of nuclear technology is not based on climate change–climate change arguments for nuclear are almost always accompanied with (often) stronger arguments for wind and solar (resulting in a net negative argument for nuclear). What we found instead is that arguments for nuclear energy are driven by more pragmatic and context specific reasons. For example, In Canada, net positive arguments for nuclear power are framed in conjunction with medical research (production of medical isotopes). Canada is responsible for 50% of the global supply of Cobalt-60, used for sterilizing, medical equipment, treating cancers and medical industrial imaging, and 60% of the global supply of Iodine-125, a key radioisotope for treating tumours. In the US, net positive arguments are framed in conjunction with commercial and innovative leadership; in the UK with energy independence. These examples make clear that net positive arguments for nuclear are: (1) location specific (e.g., they differ in Canada than they do in the US) and (2) based on unique technical advantages to nuclear (e.g., solar and wind can’t produce medical isotopes). For these reasons, we argue that climate change alone doesn’t explain the renewed momentum of the nuclear renaissance. The question then is not whether nuclear can contribute to emissions reductions, it can, but rather what is locally unique to nuclear that people deeply care about? In the U.K. for example, the Hinkley Point C nuclear power station continues to encounter delays and cost increases. One would assume these experiences would taint the legitimacy of other new nuclear projects, such as investing in SMRs (Small Modular Reactors). Yet nuclear projects continue in the UK–and it’s hard to make the argument that the reason is nuclear’s “green credentials” (again, why not solar and wind then?). In the United States, the Trump Administration’s “nuclear executive order” makes quite clear (Section 1: Purpose) the reason behind America’s nuclear revival (economic and innovation leadership): > “*Abundant energy is a vital national- and economic-security interest. In conjunction with domestic fossil fuel production, nuclear energy can liberate America from dependence on geopolitical rivals. It can power not only traditional manufacturing industries but also cutting-edge, energy-intensive industries such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing.”* *A diagram of a Small Modular Reactor (SMR). The UK continues to invest in next-generation nuclear despite cost overruns at Hinkley Point C." Credit: Understand Energy Learning Hub* We should be cautious about treating novel technologies as if they are carried forward by singular moral imperative such as climate change action. Climate change may provide a permissive backdrop, but it is not the driver of the new nuclear renaissance. This is not to say climate arguments are irrelevant, or that environmental comparisons are meaningless, rather, new technologies must be evaluated contextually. **Sources** - **Wired Magazine:** *Nuclear Now! How clean, green atomic energy can stop global warming.* - **Scientific American: ***The Nuclear Option *(How increased nuclear power generation can stave off climate change). - **Canadian Nuclear Association: ***Medical Isotopes *(A snapshot of the Canadian medical isotope sector). - **Canadian Nuclear Isotope Council: ***Isotopes for hope *(Canada’s global isotope leadership). - **The White House:*** Ordering the Reform of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission *(Executive order by President Trump). --- Source: https://gorancalic.com/llm/essays/2026-01-10-why-energy-policy-is-actually-about.md # Why Energy Policy is Actually About Culture Published on Goran Calic's Substack on January 10, 2026. Original: https://gorancalic.substack.com/p/why-energy-policy-is-actually-about #### **Technology vs. Mindset** Why does France get around 70% of its electricity from nuclear reactors, while the United States hovers at only about 20%. Both nations have access to the same technologies – nuclear plants, renewables, fossil fuels – yet their electricity systems ended up dramatically different. The usual answers point to economics or resources. But I believe the deeper reason is cultural: technology is global, but mindset is local. It’s culture, shaped by history, values, and politics, that explains why France’s grid is nuclear-powered and low-carbon, and the U.S. grid is a patchwork reflecting a more divided vision. Let’s explore how culture drives energy choices by looking at France and the U.S., and touch on other countries for comparison. Along the way, we’ll see that energy policy isn’t just engineering and cost curves, it’s also about what a society believes and prioritizes. #### **France: A Culture of Trust in the State** In the 1970s, France made a fateful choice. Shocked by oil shortages and lacking domestic fossil fuels, French leaders decided in 1974 to “rapidly expand the country’s nuclear power capacity”. This bold move, known as the *Messmer Plan*, was a state-led top-down policy launched in response to the Arab oil embargo. France had world-class engineers but few oil or gas reserves, so nuclear energy, where fuel costs were low and domestic know-how high, “made good sense in minimizing imports and achieving greater energy security”. A shortage of oil and a trust in French technocrats set the stage for its nuclear era. Critically, France’s governance is highly centralized – a tradition of central planning that “pre-dates Napoleon”. In practice, this meant the government relied on the technical experts for advice and could implement a uniform nuclear strategy (a central plan) nationwide with relatively little local obstruction. A nuclear physics professor noted that France’s compact size and semi-presidential system helped it “craft and implement very uniform policies” on energy, with *“very few regional and local barriers”*. In effect, the French public and local communities largely went along with the national plan. The results are astonishing. France built 37 reactors in a single decade (the late 1970s). Today, roughly 94% of French electricity comes from low-carbon sources, with about 70% from nuclear power alone. France’s grid emissions are among the lowest in the world, on the order of 45 grams of CO₂ per kWh, versus about 300 g/kWh in the Germany (2024). Equally interesting is how the penetration of nuclear energy itself changed French culture. Nuclear power became part of the national fabric. Three out of four French citizens now favour using nuclear energy to produce electricity, according to a 2025 Harris poll. This pro-nuclear consensus spans across age, gender, and even political lines—remarkably, about 47% of self-identified Green party supporters (typically anti-nuclear elsewhere) still support nuclear in France. And 85% of French people believe nuclear power bolsters France’s energy independence. In short, what began as a technocratic plan in the 70s evolved into a broadly accepted pillar of French culture. None of this was *inevitable*. It took a culture that trustedexperts from Électricité de France (EDF) and the Atomic Energy Commission, confidence in engineering, and a willingness to have reactors in one’s proverbial backyard. In turn, adoption led to experience, which created a culture of trust in nuclear strong enough that even after accidents like Chernobyl (1986) and Fukushima (2011) abroad, France never abandoned its nuclear fleet. As a result, France today enjoys electricity that is not only low-carbon but also relatively cheap to produce, making it Europe’s largest net exporter of electricity (earning billions of euros a year). All this stems from choices rooted in culture: an emphasis on trust in the state and faith in nuclear energy. #### **United States: A Culture of Federalism and Skepticism of Centralized Solutions** *Photo: Shutterstock/SkazovD* Across the Atlantic, the United States took a very different path, one defined by a diverse, often divided culture about energy. The U.S. had an early start in nuclear technology (it built the first reactors and had lofty “too cheap to meter” dreams), but culturally it never formed a unified vision around nuclear power the way France did. Instead, American energy policy reflects the nation’s values of federalism, driven by competition rather than technocratic decisions, and public skepticism of centralized solutions. The outcome has been an electricity mix that reflects complex regional choices. The U.S. political structure makes nationwide uniform policy difficult. Energy decisions are spread across 50 states, multiple regulators, and private companies, rather than one central authority. As one energy scholar observed, America’s large geographic size and federal system mean “regional and local barriers” can impede one-size-fits-all policies. In practice, this means Texas can pursue one path (e.g. wind power and natural gas) while, say, New York pursues another (offshore wind, maybe nuclear subsidies) – with no single plan tying them together. Culturally, Americans often prefer local control over infrastructure, and this decentralization leads to a more diverse energy mix. Today, the U.S. electricity mix is a mix of solutions: natural gas is the single largest source, coal still plays a role (though declining), renewables like wind and solar are growing, and nuclear is a steady ~20% contributor. This diversity reflects America’s pluralism – there isn’t one “American culture” on energy, but rather a competition of ideas. Some states and communities champion wind farms; others ban them due to local opposition. Some welcome nuclear (e.g. Georgia, which recently opened new reactors), while others enact moratoria (e.g. West Coast states historically). However, cultural attitudes are not static. In recent years, worries about climate change and technological optimism about AI have started to shift American views. Public support for nuclear energy in the U.S. has climbed to 61% – near record highs as of 2025. Majorities of Americans now favor clean energy development, and even nuclear has gained bipartisan (if cautious) interest as a carbon-free power source. That said, a deep partisan split remains: about 74% of Republicans vs only 46% of Democrats support nuclear power. This politicization of energy is itself cultural, with energy choices wrapped up in broader ideologies—the science and experience with nuclear is not different for Democrats or Republicans. It means that while one segment of America sees nuclear as a climate solution, another remains wary, preferring solar panels or fearing nuclear accidents. Compare this to France, where nuclear never became a left-right culture war to the same extent; it was more of a technocratic consensus. The U.S. is now trying to overcome its cultural fragmentation with incentives (for example, federal and state programs to encourage new reactor designs and renewables). But ultimately, any technology adoption, be it small modular reactors or big offshore wind farms, will succeed only if it fits into the local cultural context of acceptance. In essence, the American and French story shows how two rich, technologically advanced countries can chart different courses when cultures differ. The U.S. had all the same options as France (indeed, the first commercial nuclear reactors were American-designed), but chose a more fossil-heavy route for decades. This underscores that having technology isn’t enough; how society feels about that technology determines its fate. #### **Culture Shapes Energy Choices Globally** France and the U.S. are just two examples, but they are not isolated cases. Around the world, energy policy is entwined with culture and collective mindset: - **Germany:** Germany provides a counterpoint to France. Haunted by the specter of nuclear war and home to a strong environmental movement, German society developed a deep antinuclear culture—despite a strong nuclear technological base. - **Japan:** Few cultures shifted their energy mindset as dramatically as Japan’s. Before 2011, Japan derived about 30% of its electricity from nuclear and planned to increase that share. The Japanese public generally trusted in nuclear technology – until the Fukushima Daiichi accident shattered that trust. The trust in nuclear is slowly dreturning in Japan. - **China:** China’s authoritative political culture allows it to drive massive energy projects (coal, solar, nuclear, you name it) with relatively little public input. If France is centralized, China is *ultra*-centralized—and this has enabled the fastest coal plant build-out in history, and the fastest renewable and nuclear build-outs as well, depending on the leadership’s goals. The pattern in all these examples is that the culture of a society shape its energy system at least as much (and I would argue more) than does the available technology. Whether a country embraces nuclear power, coal plants, wind farms, or energy conservation depends on questions like: *Does the public trust the government and scientists*? *Which is a greater cultural priority, economic growth or environmental protection*? *Is there a historical memory that biases the society (like war, disasters, or colonization tied to energy)*? *How much inconvenience or cost will people tolerate for cultural beliefs*? These are cultural** **questions, not technical ones. #### **Conclusion: Culture Will Determine our Energy Future** Energy policy is often debated in terms of cost, reliability, and technology, the hardware of power plants and grids. But as we’ve seen, the software running in people’s heads may be even more decisive. France and America could access the same nuclear reactors, the same wind turbines, the same natural gas techniques. Yet France’s electricity is nuclear-centric, while the U.S.’s is more fossil-intensive and varied, precisely because each country followed its cultural inclinations. Neither approach is “destined” by physics or economics alone. Cultures are not fixed; they evolve. We’re seeing hints of that evolution now. In France, younger generations initially showed some skepticism of nuclear energy (influenced by global anti-nuclear sentiment), but facing high energy costs, energy security, and CO2 emissions , many have come back around to seeing it as a desirable solution. In the U.S., a new generation of entrepreneurs is trying to rebrand nuclear power (with safer designs and snappier names), and even some environmentalists are reconsidering their stance. As a reflective thought, consider this: When we choose an energy source, we’re also choosing a story. France chose the story of *“Technology for energy independence.”* The U.S., in many ways, chose *“All of the above – let the best idea win.”* Germany chose *“Never again to nuclear.”* These stories drove policies that made the technical real. Going forward, new stories are being written. **Sources:** - World Nuclear Association – *Nuclear Power in France* (background on France’s 1974 decision and energy security policy) - Works in Progress – *Liberté, Égalité, Radioactivité* (France’s nuclear build-out and outcomes; US reactor orders history) - Carolina Political Review – *Transatlantic Discrepancies: France vs. US Nuclear Energy* (nuclear’s share of electricity and policy differences) - GIFEN/Bastille Magazine Harris Poll (2025) French public opinion on nuclear energy) - Gallup (2025) (American public opinion on nuclear energy, partisan split) - EcoHedge – *Electricity and Carbon Footprint* (CO₂ intensity: France vs. USA vs. Germany) - The Guardian (2013) (France’s ban on fracking vs. U.S. fracking boom) - NationMaster/EIA data (Electricity use per capita in France vs. USA) Feel free to email me your thoughts—or leave them in the comments below. — Goran --- Source: https://gorancalic.com/llm/essays/2025-11-27-we-outsourced-risk-and-lost-progress.md # We Outsourced Risk — and Lost Progress Published on Goran Calic's Substack on November 27, 2025. Original: https://gorancalic.substack.com/p/we-outsourced-risk-and-lost-progress *Photo Credit: Phil Cross* We’ve become exceptionally cautions as society. We’re obsessed with safety. We minimize every possible risk (e.g., net Zero, Zero Covid). In many ways, that’s desirable. But has our zero-risk mindset gone too far? By essentially outsourcing risk to regulators (and China*) and insisting on absolute safety in every arena, we might have slowed down the very innovations that could improve our lives. From nuclear energy to new medical treatments to space exploration, our fear of failure may be costing us progress. In this article, I’ll walk through how this dynamic unfolded in those sectors, drawing on evidence and examples to make the case. Let’s explore where the balance between safety and innovation might have tipped in the wrong direction. #### **Nuclear Energy: Frozen by Fear** *A nuclear power station in Virginia, USA. After early expansion, nuclear energy development stalled for decades in the West, partly due to public fear and heavy regulation following high-profile accidents.* In the 1960s and 1970s, nuclear power was *the* high-tech hope for limitless clean energy. But then came accidents like Three Mile Island (1979) and Chernobyl (1986), which terrified the public. In response, governments and regulators slammed the brakes. New reactor projects were canceled en masse, and the nuclear industry entered a long stagnation. Essentially, we decided that even a *minuscule* chance of a radiation leak was unacceptable, and we regulated accordingly. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) adopted extremely risk-averse policies, striving to eliminate even the most remote and improbable risks from reactor operation. This sounds great for safety, but it had a side effect: it became incredibly hard to build or innovate anything new in nuclear energy. Consider that in the United States, no new nuclear construction got underway for about 30 years after the 1970s. Some states went as far as outright banning new nuclear plants – for instance, Minnesota has had a moratorium on nuclear plant construction since 1994, largely due to fears of radiation and reactor accidents. Even where nuclear wasn’t banned, the regulatory gauntlet was daunting. The NRC’s stringent rules and lengthy licensing processes introduced years of delays and hefty costs for any new reactor design. In fact, the NRC has been criticized for a *“risk averse position”* that causes uncertainty and huge delays in nuclear investments. By charging exorbitant fees and requiring endless reviews, the agency often forces nuclear innovators to spend more time on paperwork than on actual development. The result? Innovation in nuclear energy basically froze. Companies were discouraged from experimenting with advanced reactor designs (like safer molten salt or small modular reactors) because getting them approved was an almost impossible task. As one analysis put it, the NRC tended to require eliminating* *even the most remote risks, without accounting for the benefits of advanced reactors. In other words, if a new design promised to be far safer than today’s reactors but had *any* unproven element, regulators viewed it with suspicion rather than excitement. This “zero-failure” mentality meant we stuck mostly with 50-year-old reactor technology and built very few of those, too. Meanwhile, other countries that were willing to accept some risk zoomed ahead. China, for example, has been building new nuclear plants at a breathtaking pace, with 30 reactors currently under construction and 32 gigawatts of capacity added in just 2024. India, Russia, South Korea, UAE and others are also aggressively expanding nuclear. These countries certainly care about safety, but they haven’t been paralyzed by fear in the way we in North America and Europe have. Ironically, by trying so hard to avoid any nuclear mishap, we may have increased other risks – like greater reliance on fossil fuels and higher carbon emissions, since nuclear wasn’t there to carry the load. *The Tianwan Nuclear Power Station Unit 8 under construction in Jiangsu Province in 2024. Photographer: Li Bo/Xinhua/Getty Images* To be clear, safety regulations in nuclear energy exist for very good reasons, the public understandably demands high assurances given the stakes. But the story of the past few decades suggests we overshot. By insisting on “zero risk” before allowing new projects, we created a system where almost no new projects happen*.* As one UK government review noted bluntly, increasing regulatory complexity and risk aversion weakened innovation and competitiveness in the nuclear sector. We effectively outsourced all risk to watchdog agencies and told them “don’t let anything ever go wrong.” They listened and stalled the industry. #### **Medicine: The Price of Extreme Caution** When it comes to our health, *of course* we want treatments to be safe. Nobody wants dangerous drugs or procedures. Over the past half-century, regulators like the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have steadily raised the bar on safety evidence required before new medical innovations reach patients. This has saved lives by weeding out harmful or ineffective remedies. But it has also made the process of developing a new drug or device incredibly slow and expensive to the point that some experts worry it’s costing lives and advancements in other ways. Today, bringing a new medicine from lab to market typically takes 10-15 years of trials and regulatory review. The FDA prides itself on being the “gold standard” for rigor. Yet even people within that system have started to ask if the pendulum swung too far toward caution. An FDA commissioner nominee recently argued that the agency’s stringent protocols, while crucial for safety, have become “blunt tools” in a world that needs more speed and** **adaptability. In plain language: the process is so slow and cautious that it’s struggling to keep up with modern medical science. Real-world data bear this out. The FDA’s approval pathway can take years to navigate, which delays new treatments for patients and dampens innovation. Those safeguards against risk come with serious opportunity costs. For example, patients with terminal illnesses or rare diseases might die waiting for a therapy that’s stuck in the lengthy pipeline of trials and approvals. And from an innovation standpoint, a small biotech startup that has an exciting breakthrough might burn through its funding trying to satisfy years of regulatory requirements, sometimes giving up entirely. As one analysis noted, each year of delay not only affects patients’ health but also erodes U.S. competitiveness in biomedicine. Meanwhile, other countries have taken a more flexible approach. China, in particular, has introduced streamlined approval processes – things like conditional approvals and accelerated review pathways for promising drugs. Their regulators are willing to accept a bit more uncertainty up front, with the understanding that they’ll monitor and manage any issues that arise. Moreover, new medicine can be made available to patients that volunteer to take the risk. Ultimately, a patient should determine what risk they are willing to take in order to have access to treatment. (This could have been done with early Covid 19 trials.) The interesting result is that Chinese companies have been able to launch innovative therapies faster without any reported compromise in safety. In areas like cancer treatment, they can get new drugs to patients years earlier than we do in the West, because they tolerate some risk and focus on managing it rather than eliminating it completely. The difference in philosophy is striking. In the U.S. and much of Europe, the mindset has often been “prove beyond *any* doubt that this new treatment poses near-zero risk before a human can use it.” In China, the mindset is closer to “if early data show this could save lives, let’s allow controlled use and gather more data in the real world.” The latter accepts that some risk is inevitable and tries to learn from it. The former tries to banish risk through endless pre-testing, which can delay lifesaving innovations. We saw a vivid illustration during the COVID-19 pandemic. Under immense pressure, regulators temporarily bent their own rules—coordinating global trials, allowing emergency vaccine use, and essentially doing in 12 months what normally takes a decade. The result was the fastest vaccine development in history, with safety profiles that held up remarkably well. It makes you wonder: how many other breakthroughs could reach people faster if we were willing to accept and manage a bit more uncertainty? One study warned that America’s overly cautious approach to emerging biotechnologies could lead to *“losing out on the development of new technologies”* as other countries race ahead. In other words, playing it too safe can be risky in its own way – the risk that we fall behind in curing diseases. None of this is to say we should throw open the floodgates and approve treatments without solid evidence. Patients’ safety must remain a priority. But there is growing recognition that the balance needs adjusting—and that patients should have more say in the risks they take. Even former FDA officials have argued for a shift toward “responsible risk-taking” – policies that maintain high safety standards while also encouraging innovation. Just as in nuclear energy, a mentality of *“zero risk or bust”* in medicine has often meant we bust. The challenge ahead is to find mechanisms (adaptive trial designs, better use of real-world data, etc.) that preserve trust and safety but don’t paralyze innovation. Ultimately, the public benefits both from safe medicines *and* from timely availability of new cures. Achieving that requires accepting that some risk is inherent in innovation, and focusing on managing it intelligently rather than pretending we can make it vanish. #### **Space Exploration: When Failure *****Is***** an Option** When NASA’s Flight Director Gene Kranz declared *“Failure is not an option,”* it was in the context of guiding Apollo 13’s astronauts safely back to Earth. It’s an iconic phrase, epitomizing NASA’s can-do, *no-matter-what* attitude in the 1960s. Back then, the United States took enormous risks. In a span of just eight years, humanity went from barely launching a person into orbit to landing humans on the Moon. That progress came at a cost: astronauts died in the Apollo 1 fire, and many rockets blew up during testing. The nation mourned those losses but continued to push forward. There was an unspoken societal consensus: the goal was so important that significant risk was justified and the people involved were aware of the risks. Over time, that consensus faded. After the Apollo era, NASA shifted to the Space Shuttle program, which aimed to make spaceflight more routine and *safe*. But the devastating Challenger explosion in 1986 and Columbia disaster in 2003 shattered the nation’s confidence. Understandably, NASA became far more cautious. Some of that caution was necessary – we learned hard lessons about engineering and management lapses. Yet, in the aftermath, the agency’s ambitions shrank. Plans for bold missions (like a crewed Mars expedition) kept getting postponed. The driving mandate became: avoid another astronaut death at all costs. (Early discussions nearly eliminated SpaceX as a potential supplier to NASA because it’s engineers were seen as too reckless. SpaceX now supplies nearly 100% of United States launches—and SpaceX still takes lots of risks)** **In effect, NASA and its political overseers outsourced risk to public opinion: if one more big failure happened, support for space exploration could dry up, so better to play it safe and slow. The ironic outcome was a sort of stall in human space exploration. For decades after the Moon landings, no human traveled beyond low-Earth orbit. Arguably, NASA’s extreme risk aversion created a culture where *“gradual progress and caution”* dominated. A former official once joked that NASA sometimes tries to model and perfect everything “to the Nth degree” before taking action. That meticulousness ensured high success rates for missions, but it also meant very few truly novel missions were attempted. The Space Shuttles became workhorses for Earth orbit, but after the two accidents, even that program was eventually retired without a direct successor (largely because zero failures which the shuttle program strived for, but never achieved, is exceptionally expensive). Failure was not an option and so avoiding failure sometimes took priority over trying something new. *A Super Heavy SpaceX booster being caught using mechanical arms as it returned to its launchpad (October 2024). Image credit: SpaceX* Enter the new players: private space companies like SpaceX. When SpaceX’s founder Elon Musk came along, he famously turned the old NASA maxim on its head. “Failure *is* an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough,” Musk quipped, as his team prepared to fly rockets in a way no private company had done before. It sounded cavalier, but it speaks to a fundamental truth that innovation requires trial and error, and error entails *failure*. SpaceX embraced this philosophy and still does. In the development of their Starship (a next-generation giant rocket), they built prototypes quickly and often saw them explode spectacularly during landing attempts. And guess what? They learned from each crash and improved the design rapidly. In a span of a few years, SpaceX went from Starship prototypes blowing up one after another, to a successful orbital test flight of a fully reusable rocket system. Something that might have taken NASA decades under a no-fail culture was achieved in a fraction of the time by iterating fast and tolerating failures. We can see a broader trend: the commercialization of space has reintroduced a higher risk tolerance, and it’s yielding results. In 2011, there was just 1 FAA-licensed commercial rocket launch in the U.S.; by 2020, there were 39 – a 3,800% increase. That explosion (pun intended) in launch activity happened because regulators gave private companies more leeway to experiment, and companies brought deep pockets and a mindset that accepts risk in pursuit of reward. Private ventures know some missions will fail. Investors know rockets might blow up. But they press on, because the potential payoff (affordable space travel, satellite networks, even Mars colonies) is worth it. And crucially, these failures don’t carry the same stigma they once did at NASA; instead of Congressional hearings and program shutdowns, a private rocket failure is seen as a learning step. There’s almost a celebratory attitude: “Look how much we discovered from that crash; the next flight will do better.” * Image Source: FAA on Medium* Now, it’s important to note that even SpaceX isn’t reckless. They don’t put people on test flights that might blow up, and they work with the FAA to ensure public safety. They’ve simply found a better balance between risk and progress, one that government programs struggled to strike. The lesson here is not that NASA or others should be indifferent to safety (astronaut lives are precious, after all). Rather, it’s that the pendulum of risk aversion can swing too far, to the point where it stifles the very spirit of exploration. Indeed, the risk is that we don’t allow astronauts to take risks they themselves would gladly take. The fact that NASA is now teaming up with companies like SpaceX and leaning on that risk-tolerant culture (for example, using SpaceX to ferry astronauts to the ISS and potentially to the Moon) shows a recognition that *some* risk is healthy. As one space industry piece concluded, the key is creating “robust frameworks that strike a balance between safety and the** **risk-taking required to grow” our presence in space. After all, a “fear of failure” shouldn’t be allowed to eclipse our desire to push boundaries. #### **Finding the Balance: Embracing *****Responsible***** Risk** * ‘The Jetsons,’ circa 1962. (Warner Bros./Courtesy of Getty Images)* Reviewing these examples—nuclear energy, medicine, and space—a common thread emerges. In each case, society reached a point where avoidance of risk became the overriding goal. We handed off responsibility to regulators or adopted unwritten rules that said, “No more failures, ever.” It came from a well-meaning place: nobody wants to see a radiation leak, a harmful drug, or a lost astronaut. But taken to an extreme, this mindset led to innovation paralysis. We outsourced risk and, in doing so, often outsourced progress as well. So, what’s the solution? I believe it’s finding a better balance—embracing responsible risk instead of zero risk. Responsible risk means acknowledging that no advancement is completely free of uncertainty or potential downsides, yet forging ahead with careful monitoring and mitigation. It means allowing the first-of-a-kind nuclear reactor to be built while enforcing strict safety protocols, rather than requiring infinite analysis before shovel hits ground. It means letting an experimental drug be used by desperately ill patients, while continuing to gather data, rather than making them wait a decade for certainty. It means cheering on a rocket prototype test, understanding it might explode, rather than ridiculing any failure. In all these cases, the knowledge gained from taking measured risks ultimately makes things safer and better. There’s a saying I like: *“The biggest risk is not taking any risk.”* In the context of our discussion, it rings true. By not taking risks, we risk *stagnation*. We risk missing out on cleaner energy that could slow climate change. We risk failing to cure diseases that steal loved ones from us. We risk ceding our pioneering spirit and leadership in arenas that shaped our civilization’s progress. Paradoxically, a zero-risk approach can lead to very high long-term risks—just not the kind that are as obvious or immediate. We must rebalance our risk calculus. This doesn’t mean being reckless; it means being bold in a smart way. Regulators can shift from a precautionary mindset of “prove it’s perfectly safe” to an adaptive mindset of “ensure it’s safe *enough* to try, then learn and adjust.” Industries can reward engineers and researchers not just for avoiding failure, but for iterating and overcoming failures. And as a society, we can foster an attitude that tolerates the hiccups and mistakes that come with breaking new ground. Rather than demonizing failures, we can treat them as opportunities to improve. In the end, progress and safety are not mutually exclusive but they do require trade-offs. We’ll always need guardians against genuine dangers; nobody is suggesting we go back to the days of radium medicines and untested inventions flying blind. However, if we trust in our ability to manage and learn from risks, we can move faster without sacrificing our core safety. The examples of late, from SpaceX’s rockets to the rapid vaccine rollout, show that when the situation demands it, we *can* rise to the challenge and innovate responsibly at high speed. The next time we reflexively say “no” to something because it carries risk, let’s pause and ask: *What might we lose by not taking this risk?* Often, the answer will be “quite a lot.” Feel free to email me your thoughts—or leave them in the comments below. — Goran * *Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future, by Dan Wang* --- Source: https://gorancalic.com/llm/essays/2025-11-13-the-psychology-of-power-why-we-fear.md # The Psychology of Power: Why We Fear the Word “Nuclear” Published on Goran Calic's Substack on November 13, 2025. Original: https://gorancalic.substack.com/p/the-psychology-of-power-why-we-fear When you hear the word “nuclear,” what’s your first reaction? If you’re like most people, it probably isn’t warm and fuzzy. The term *nuclear* tends to evoke fear – images of mushroom clouds, radioactive hazard symbols, or power plants glowing ominously in pop culture. Despite decades of scientific advancement and data on nuclear technology, public perception remains deeply shaped by narratives of danger and secrecy. In fact, those narratives often loom larger in our minds than any spreadsheet of safety statistics. Why do we fear *the word* “nuclear” so much, and what does this say about the psychology of power (both electrical and political)? Let’s explore how history, psychology, and culture have ingrained a fearful reaction to all things nuclear – and why those fears persist in defiance of hard data. ### **Born in Secrecy, Baptized in Fear** It’s no coincidence that “nuclear” has been shrouded in secrecy and mystique from the very start. The nuclear age began in strict secrecy during the Manhattan Project in the 1940s. Governments raced to harness the atom’s power behind closed doors, creating an aura of mystery. That legacy lingers even today: nuclear technology often feels opaque to the public. Historian Alex Wellerstein notes that this enduring secrecy *“fosters…ignorance, even if the information is out there. Nuclear weapons are perceived as the most secret of the secrets.”* In other words, the very secrecy surrounding nuclear matters has fed the imagination that something extraordinarily dangerous (perhaps dangerously uncontrollable) must lie behind those classified doors. On top of that foundation of secrecy came the traumatic fear of nuclear *war*. The mid-20th century Cold War era seared the word “nuclear” into the public psyche as shorthand for apocalypse. Many who grew up during the Cold War vividly remember the existential dread that a nuclear bomb could erase everything in an instant. As one writer recalling the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis confessed, *“I remember going to bed…seriously afraid I would not be alive in the morning.”* This wasn’t an isolated feeling, an entire generation lived under the shadow of possible atomic annihilation. Such Cold War fears *“helped carve the dread”* of invisible harms like radiation deep into our hearts. Crucially, those atomic bomb fears didn’t stay confined to nuclear weapons alone; they *“framed the phobia about nuclear power”* as well. In the public mind, reactors and bombs all became part of one blurry, terrifying “nuclear” menace. It was a massively expansive and expensive marketing campaign created a history of misinformation about nuclear energy. The consequences of this fear bleed into policy to this day. Decades of public anxiety about anything nuclear have often pushed leaders to favor seemingly “safer” alternatives, sometimes with ironic results. David Ropeik, a risk communication expert, points out that nuclear war dread fueled a *“phobia about nuclear power, leading to a coal-based energy policy which has killed hundreds of thousands of people from air pollution and threatens the very climate on which life on earth depends.”* In other words, by shunning nuclear energy due to fear, society embraced dirtier fuels like coal, trading a *perceived* risk for a far deadlier but familiar one. It’s a powerful example of how our psychological aversion to the nuclear bogeyman can end up causing greater harm in roundabout ways. ### Pop Culture and the “Nuclear” Narrative Beyond wars and state secrets, our collective fear of “nuclear” has been continuously reinforced by culture and media. From early sci-fi tales to modern TV dramas, whenever radiation or nuclear power appears in fiction, it’s usually as the villain. For decades, comic books and movies gave us mutant creatures spawned by radiation and doomsday devices threatening the world. In the 1950s, for example, Hollywood churned out B-movies about giant insects born of atomic tests. Fast forward to today’s pop culture: consider how HBO’s *Chernobyl* miniseries (while brilliantly made) portrayed a nuclear accident in the most nightmarish light, or how The Simpsons has for years shown a hapless Homer Simpson working at an obviously unsafe nuclear power plant. These stories might be entertainment, but they leave a mark on the public imagination. They supply vivid mental pictures for an otherwise invisible threat. This matters because radiation itself is something we can’t directly see, smell, or feel, making it abstract and scary. As nuclear communication expert John Lindberg writes, *“radiation is invisible to all our senses… so the only way for us to really make sense of [it] is to use images that are given to us by pop culture or history.”* When we constantly see glowing green ooze or catastrophic meltdowns on screen, it’s no wonder we subconsciously associate *“nuclear”* with disaster. Over time, the very word has taken on a negative aura. (How often do we use “going nuclear” to mean something extreme or destructive in everyday language?) All of this feeds what some call “radiophobia.” Radiophobia isn’t a clinical phobia in the strict sense, but a term for the widespread *disconnect* between the perceived danger of radiation and the reality described by scientific evidence. In plain terms, many people believe that anything nuclear or radioactive is unconditionally perilous, a mortal threat not only to us but to future generations, whereas experts will tell you that, in many contexts, radiation isn’t as uniquely dangerous as we imagine. Pop culture has greatly “helped coin the term radiophobia” by cementing that disconnect. If you reflexively picture *Chernobyl* or *Hiroshima* whenever you hear “nuclear,” you’re tapping into the narrative legacy more than the nuanced facts. ### Data vs. Dread: The Reality of Nuclear Risk At this point you might ask: *Is our fear of “nuclear” really that out of step with reality?* After all, nuclear weapons *are* incredibly destructive, and accidents like Chernobyl and Fukushima *did* happen. Caution isn’t unreasonable. But it’s eye-opening to compare our perceptions of nuclear danger with the data on actual risks, especially in the realm of nuclear *power* for energy. Psychologists who study risk perception note that nuclear accidents fall into a category of hazards known as “dread risks.” These are threats that people view as catastrophic, uncontrollable, and involuntary, in short, the kind of danger that produces high fear and low trust. Nuclear power hits all those buttons: the idea of an accident releasing invisible radiation feels especially frightening and unfair, since the public can’t personally control or even detect it. However, the crucial point is that our *fear level* doesn’t match the *actual risk*. As one scientific analysis bluntly states, *“Perception of risk and the measurable likelihood of harm… are not always correlated.”* For example, “nuclear power is viewed by experts as relatively safe but non-experts rate it as very risky”. We have a very sizable perception gap. So, what does the evidence say? If we look at the safety record and impacts of nuclear energy, it turns out to be one of the safest forms of power generation we have, especially when compared to other major energy sources. One way to measure this is by the number of deaths caused per unit of electricity produced (including accidents *and* pollution effects). By that metric, nuclear energy’s harm is extremely low. Studies find about 0.03–0.04 deaths per terawatt-hour (TWh) of electricity generated by nuclear power. In contrast, coal power, which for decades has been the main alternative, causes around 24.5 deaths per TWh when you factor in fatal accidents and public health damage from air pollution. Even oil and natural gas cause on the order of 2–18 deaths per TWh, vastly higher than nuclear. In contrast, nuclear, wind, and solar have the *lowest* death rates (on the order of 0.01–0.04 per TWh) and very low emissions. In essence, running the electric grid on fossil fuels kills people thousands of times more frequently than running it on nuclear reactors. Yet coal and gas rarely provoke the level of dread that the word “nuclear” does. To put those numbers in perspective, consider a hypothetical European town of 150,000 that gets all its power from one source. If that town were powered by a coal plant, *every single year* 25 of its residents would die due to coal. If it were powered by a natural gas power plant, each year 3 people would die—significantly safer than coal. If it were powered by a nuclear plant, on average *nobody* would die in a given year – statistically, you’d expect perhaps one fatality in 33 years of operation. Yet many people fear the nuclear plant far more than the coal and natural gas plant. This is a prime example of the psychology of dread at work. What about those notorious nuclear accidents? It’s true that events like Chernobyl (1986) and Fukushima (2011) were serious and traumatic. But even there, the actual health impacts, while tragic, ended up much lower than most assumed at the time. At Chernobyl, the only acute deaths were the 28 first responders who suffered fatal radiation sickness (and a few cases of later thyroid cancer fatalities) – dire outcomes, but nowhere near the millions of casualties people feared when imagining a worst-case meltdown. At Fukushima, *no* member of the public died from radiation exposure. In fact, a report from the World Nuclear Association notes *“there have been no deaths or cases of radiation sickness from the [Fukushima] nuclear accident”*. The stark irony is that the evacuation after Fukushima – driven by fear of radiation – itself led to over 2,300 premature deaths (especially among elderly evacuees, due to stress and disrupted healthcare). In other words, the fear of nuclear harm in that case proved more deadly than the radiation itself. This isn’t to minimize the genuine trauma and economic damage such accidents cause; rather, it’s to highlight how our intuitive dread of “nuclear” can sometimes mislead us about where the real risks lie. ### Consequences of Fear and Moving Forward Our fear of the word “nuclear” has had far-reaching consequences. For decades, public opposition rooted in *narratives of danger* stalled the expansion of nuclear energy in many countries. Some nations abandoned nuclear power entirely due to popular fear – often after high-profile accidents. The irony is that in doing so, they sometimes increased their reliance on coal or gas, which quietly exact a much higher human and environmental toll. Put simply, when we let fear drive energy policy, we may end up swapping one big perceived risk for several smaller-but-deadly real ones. Yet there are signs that the narrative could be slowly shifting. Faced with the realities of climate change and the need for clean energy, a new generation is reevaluating nuclear power with fresh eyes. Data and experience are gradually chipping away at old assumptions. In the United States, for instance, public support for nuclear energy is at its highest in decades – about *six-in-ten Americans* now favor building more nuclear plants, up from only 43% a few years ago. A similar trend is seen in some other countries, where even environmentalists are cautiously warming up to nuclear as a low-carbon solution. This doesn’t mean the fear is gone, but it suggests that facts *can* start to make headway once the narrative context changes (in this case, the context being the fight against climate change). Ultimately, overcoming the fear of “nuclear” isn’t simply about reciting statistics – it’s about acknowledging the emotional weight of those Cold War images, secretive policies, and disaster stories that people carry with them. The narratives of danger and secrecy have been powerful; to reshape public perception, the nuclear field will have to offer *new* narratives that are just as compelling. Transparency and trust will be key. When people see, for example, a well-regulated nuclear plant operating safely in their community year after year, or learn that nuclear medicine saves lives every day, the mystique of dread begins to fade and the word “nuclear” starts to feel a little less scary. In the end, the psychology of power teaches us a lesson. Human beings don’t assess risk purely by the numbers; we’re guided by story, symbolism, and emotion. *“Nuclear”* became a fearful word not because of a mathematical analysis, but because of what it has stood for in our collective experience: doomsday weapons, invisible poisons, government cover-ups, and monstrous accidents. Changing that impression will require time, openness, and empathy. But as we’ve seen, there is a reality beneath the fear: a reality in which nuclear technology, handled responsibly, could improve lives and even help fight climate change. Understanding why we fear the word “nuclear” is the first step to moving beyond that fear, and maybe seeing nuclear power in a more balanced light, guided by both facts and a clearer narrative. Feel free to email me your thoughts—or leave them in the comments below. — Goran --- Source: https://gorancalic.com/llm/essays/2025-11-05-if-you-live-in-ontario-your-electricity.md # If you live in Ontario, your electricity bill just went up 29% Published on Goran Calic's Substack on November 5, 2025. Original: https://gorancalic.substack.com/p/if-you-live-in-ontario-your-electricity On Nov 1, Ontario’s electricity prices rose about 29%. You won’t see the full 29% on your bill because the province covers roughly $6B a year in subsidies. That just means you’ll pay the difference through other provincial taxes. Some are blaming nuclear power—notably the Ontario Clean Air Alliance, which prefers renewables and opposes nuclear and gas. I see it differently: renewables and storage won’t lower total system costs, they are likely to increase them. And yes, nuclear is more expensive in the West than it should be—mostly because projects take too long. ### Why timing matters When nuclear builds run late, financing costs compound. It’s like paying the mortgage of a house that is being built, while still paying rent. On some nuclear construction projects, interest during construction can approach ~65% of total cost. In Asia, new reactors often finish in ~5–6 years. In the West, 8+ years is common. As Hannah Ritchie points out in her article on why nuclear power plants take so long to build, we *have* built quickly before—we’ve just fallen out of practice. ### So what should Ontario do? It’s true nuclear is too expensive as we build it today. The answer isn’t renewables; it’s to make nuclear faster and cheaper. **Where to focus** - Better incentives: Owner‑led project controls & risk management - More competition: Multiple providers of technology. - New regulatory pathways: Nuclear faces regulation not commensurate with its risk. This needs to be rethought. Feel free to email me your thoughts—or leave them in the comments below. — Goran --- Source: https://gorancalic.com/llm/essays/2025-10-10-issue-28-how-rooftop-solar-panels.md # Issue #28: How Rooftop Solar Panels Redistribute Income from the Poor to the Rich. And why they Might Be a Bad Deal — Even for the Rich. Published on Goran Calic's Substack on October 10, 2025. Original: https://gorancalic.substack.com/p/issue-28-how-rooftop-solar-panels #### **The Castle Rock case** A few weeks ago, my research assistant, Michael Tadrous, was visiting family in Castle Rock, Colorado and noticed something very interesting in their new development neighbourhood — nearly every other roof had solar panels. So, I asked him to do some quick investigative journalism and report back to me. Out of the 20 homes he knocked on, only three people answered, two were very pleased with their investment and one seemed more apathetic, saying he anticipates to only break even on his investment. Before installing solar, these families paid roughly $150–$200/month for electricity. After solar, their bill fell to about $50/month. Typical all‑in installation cost is roughly $30,000, reduced to about $21,000 after the 30% federal Residential Clean Energy Credit. When Michael and I recorded Episode 36 of our podcast, he shared those findings and we decided to test the math. *Suburban street in Castle Rock with several homes featuring rooftop solar panels. (Photo: Michael Tadrous)* We modeled a standard four‑bedroom home using 1,200 kWh/month (above the U.S. average of about 900 kWh). Castle Rock’s utility, CORE Electric Cooperative, charges fixed monthly fees (connection plus demand) that add to roughly $50 before any energy is consumed, and about $0.108/kWh for usage. That yields an all‑in pre‑solar bill of about $180/month (about $2,150/year). *Table showing CORE residential plan fixed charges (~$50/month) and per-kWh price, with illustrative bill and savings. (Table: Goran Calic)* Now add a 10-kW rooftop system costing $30,000 before incentives. With the 30% credit, the net is roughly $21,000, as before mentioned. (IRS). In sunny Colorado, that array can roughly offset annual usage. With net metering, which credits daytime excess at retail and lets you draw back later, the post‑solar bill is mostly the fixed charges: $50/month or $600/year. This means savings are about $1,550/year. On $21,000 invested, that’s an IRR ofroughly 7.5%, a simple payback of 13–14 years. At first glance, it sounds respectable, squarely between a 10‑year Treasury (≈4%) and long‑run stock returns (≈10%). #### **The mirage of ROI** The issue with a headline like this on returns is that it assumes these panels last forever and never need any maintenance. That’s certainly false. Panels degrade and are typically warranted for only 25 years. Constrain the analysis to 25 years and the effective annual return in our model falls to roughly 5.6%. End the project after 15 years (if one has to move, reroof, or sell), and the return falls to 1.6%, essentially breaking even, or even a loss once inflation is factored in. *Line chart with monthly household load, solar output, and net-billed usage after net metering. (Figure: Goran Calic)* Other real-world factors bring that return down even further. When panels age, they need to be taken down and replaced, and removal and disposal can cost several thousand dollars, cutting into lifetime savings eve further. Any roof work during their lifespan becomes costlier too, since the array must be removed and reinstalled. A typical reroof can run about 30% higher once you factor in solar handling. Insurance premiums also tend to rise slightly after solar panels are installed, estimates range from $50 to $600 a year, and if a homeowner later reduces energy use through efficiency upgrades, the array delivers smaller savings than planned, since it was designed for higher consumption. *Technicians installing rooftop solar panels. (Photo: Wolf River Electric)* Policy risks matter, too. The 30% federal tax credit is really what makes the investment make any sense; take it away, and the 15-year IRR in our model turns negative while the 25-year return drops to roughly 2%, worse than even a risk-free bond. Net metering isn’t guaranteed to stay this generous either. CORE currently credits excess power at the full retail rate, but larger residential systems already face tighter limits and reduced credits once capacity crosses certain thresholds. California has gone even further: under NEM 3.0, export credits for new customers were cut by about 75%, shifting to avoided‑cost pricing. Any policy move in that direction would further lengthen payback periods and erode solar’s return on investment. *Diagram showing daytime solar export credited against nighttime grid consumption under daily net metering. (Figure: Wikimedia Commons)* #### **Who really pays for solar subsidies? An equity issue.** There’s also an equity issue hidden behind the rooftop solar boom. The 30% federal credit, roughly $9,000 on a $30,000 system, is funded by all taxpayers, yet only those with the means to afford solar can claim it through the IRS Clean Energy Credit. Homeowners with sufficient income and tax liability benefit most, while lower-income families and renters, who can’t access the credit, help foot the bill through general taxation. Net metering also adds a second imbalance. Solar homes still depend on the same poles, wires, and backup generation as everyone else, but because they buy less electricity, they contribute less toward maintaining that shared infrastructure. Those fixed costs don’t disappear, they’re simply redistributed to non-solar customers, who shoulder a larger share of the grid’s upkeep. #### **So, is rooftop solar “worth it”?** The answer is only if subsidies remain very generous and only for those with sufficient access to capital (buying an EV helps, another large capital expenditure). If you have consistently high energy use, a roof in good condition, and you can take full advantage of current incentives, the numbers can still reach that 5-6% return in Castle Rock. This doesn’t make rooftop solar “bad.” But it does call for clearer thinking. Subsidies that push affluent households toward marginal projects, or even resource misallocation may not be the best use of public money. Policy should account for who really benefits and who really pays. The takeaway from Castle Rock is simple: the savings many homeowners celebrate could be real for them, but the system‑wide benefits are far less clear-cut. Solar panels don’t create new value so much as shift it from the treasury and other ratepayers to those who can afford to install them. Feel free to email me your thoughts—or leave them in the comments below. — Goran *This post was co-authored by Goran Calic and Michael Tadrous.* --- Source: https://gorancalic.com/llm/essays/2025-09-24-issue-27-long-construction-times.md # Issue #27: Long Construction Times Can Lead to Unemployment Published on Goran Calic's Substack on September 24, 2025. Original: https://gorancalic.substack.com/p/issue-27-long-construction-times One of the most frequent (and valid) criticisms of the nuclear energy industry in the West is how long it takes to build new nuclear power plants. Hannah Ritchie has a great article that digs into this in detail. Here’s a quick summary of her findings: > · **Fast builds in Asia:** Countries like Japan, South Korea, and China tend to build reactors very quickly – often in under 6 years, and sometimes in as little as 5 years. · **Slower builds in the West:** “Western” countries such as France, the UK, and the US usually take much longer, often 8+ years per reactor. · **They weren’t always slow in the West:** Notably, those Western countries *have* built reactors quickly in the past (for example, the U.S. built some small reactors in just a few years back in the 1960s). · **Who’s building now:** Today the vast majority of new reactors are being built in Asia (see image below—red is Asia) – perhaps a reflection of these countries’ ability to execute projects swiftly, while many Western nations have built few or none recently. Why do these construction times matter? Simply put, longer build times carry serious downsides. Below we look at two major impacts: the economic costs and the employment effects. ## Negative Impacts on Economics of Reactors The most immediate impact of long build times is increased cost. If two reactors have the exact same requirements for labor and materials, the one that takes longer will ultimately cost more due to accumulating interest on the financing. Imagine finishing two reactors at the exact same time, and just waiting 3-5 years to turn on reactor on. Over those 3-5 years, interest will compound and costs will skyrocket. It’s like getting the mortgage on a new house, waiting 5 years to move in while still paying rent somewhere else and not paying any of the principle down. Missed timelines are so substantial that the interest paid during construction can end up representing about 65% of the total cost of a plant. ## Can slow builds really cause unemployment? A less-discussed consequence of long construction times is their impact on employment. During the research for a recent paper I co-authored with Professor David Novog and Michael Tadrous, it became clear that dragging out reactor projects can create a boom-bust cycle for jobs. The figure below depicts the growth and decline in labour for the construction of just one nuclear power plant. The **blue line** is a depiction of full-time employment as a direct result of the construction ramping up and down. This represents construction workers, skilled trades (like welding), engineers, site supervisors, etc. The **red line** is indirect employment, like the extra supply chain workers required to produce goods and services for the construction project (concrete, pipes, software, etc.). The **green line** is induced labour, which represents the workers required for housing, food, and other goods (construction boots, helmets, movie theaters) and (haircuts, physiotherapy, hockey arenas) need for the overall increased labour in the economy. To illustrate the boom bust cycle over an entire fleet build out, consider Canada’s current nuclear ambitions. Canada has pledged to triple its nuclear capacity by 2050. In practice, tripling means adding roughly 40 GW of new nuclear capacity – about forty 1 GW reactors – between now and 2050. This will require a rapid** **build rate. If new builds start around 2025 and the first reactors come online by 2035, Canada would need to bring about 2.5 reactors per year into operation to reach the goal on time. With each plant taking ~10 years to build, that implies on the order of 25 reactors under construction concurrently at the peak of activity. That’s a big surge in labour demand. (That is a little like taking the above single reactor build and multiplying it by 25.) When you include the broader jobs generated the peak grows to roughly 209,000 total jobs. The flip side of a high peak is what happens afterward. Once the buildout is complete, all those jobs related to building the reactors are no longer needed. The model indicates a sharp decline in employment after the 2040 peak as projects wind down. Will the tens of thousands of trade workers, engineers, and other staff be absorbed into the broader economy once the plants are built? If yes, in which sectors will they find work? If not, how will they be supported after dedicating a decade or more to the nuclear buildout? ## Shorter Build Times Reduce Boom-Bust Cycles If each reactor project can be completed more quickly, we can deliver the same amount of new capacity with **less overlap between projects**. Faster builds mean you don’t need as many reactors under construction **at the same time** to reach a given 2050 target. This can significantly smooth out the demand for labor. For example, in our scenario above we assumed ~25 concurrent builds with a 10-year construction timeline. But what if, hypothetically, each reactor only took 5 years to build instead of 10? In theory, that could roughly cut the peak concurrency in half – maybe only on the order of 12 reactors being built simultaneously instead of 25 (since each project completes sooner). You’d still be adding about 2.5 reactors per year (to get to 40 GW total), but because each individual project finishes faster, the workforce can cycle through projects more sequentially rather than all at once. We are fairly certain this “speed up” is possible with better on-site management, as most (72%) of the cost increases in (US) power plant builds come from “soft” costs—costs not related to hardware like concrete and steel. Take a look at the figure below taken from one of my favourite articles on the topic. If we can reduce these “soft” costs, we can make nuclear power plants not only more affordable, and thus make clean energy more affordable, but also reduce the potentially negative boom-bust cycle of necessary nuclear build outs. Feel free to email me your thoughts—or leave them in the comments below. — Goran --- Source: https://gorancalic.com/llm/essays/2025-09-16-issue-26-record-demand-cheaper-gas.md # Issue #26: Record Demand, Cheaper Gas, and Nuclear’s Rising Role Published on Goran Calic's Substack on September 16, 2025. Original: https://gorancalic.substack.com/p/issue-26-record-demand-cheaper-gas ## 1. U.S. power use to reach record highs in 2025 and 2026, EIA says U.S. power consumption is projected to hit ~4,187 TWh in 2025 and ~4,305 TWh in 2026, driven by rising demand from homes, businesses, AI/data centers, and crypto. Natural gas’s share in electricity generation ticks down (42 % → 40 %), renewables rise (23 % → 26 %), nuclear edges slightly down (19 % → 18 %). **By the numbers:** - Total power usage: ~4,187 billion kWh (2025), ~4,305 billion kWh (2026); - Natural gas share: from 42 % (2024) to 40 % (2026); - Renewables from 23 % → 26 %; nuclear from 19 % → 18 %. **Signal:** IAEA revised upward power demands for nuclear from 377GW to 992GW by 2050, that’s a 2.6x increase (see image below of expected nuclear energy production). More electrons means more revenue for utilities. Which utilities will benefit? Those in jurisdictions with access to capital, favourable regulations (for gas and nuclear), and know-how in building power for data-centers. > ## 2. Solar, storage are booming, but federal policy is driving costs higher Despite strong growth—with solar + storage accounting for 82 % of new U.S. grid capacity additions H1 2025—federal policy (tariffs, tax credit tweaks, permitting changes) is pushing prices up: residential solar +2 %, commercial +10 %, utility‐scale +4 % YoY. New forecasts warn of a 18–21 % decline in deployment relative to prior expectations due to these headwinds. **By the numbers:** - Solar & storage share of new capacity (H1 2025): 82 %; - Price increases YoY: residential +2 %, commercial +10 %, utility‐scale +4 %; - At risk deployment by 2030: 44 GW lost (18%), or 55 GW (21%) vs pre-OBBBA forecasts. **Signal:** Trump has recently stated that “nuclear is more American than solar and wind”. He’s likely referring to China’s control over these two supply chains. China controls about 90% of the entire solar supply chain. We can expect solar and wind subsidies to wind down (raising future costs) and possibly even the addition of measures which block future projects (further increase costs). So, where will be new power come from? Gas. See the image below for decrease in construction of renewables and increase in the construction of gas for 2025. ## 3. Golden age of nuclear delivers UK-US deal on energy security The UK and U.S. signed a partnership to speed up nuclear build-out, halving licensing timelines (from ~3–4 years to ~2) and launching several projects: up to 12 Xe-100 AMRs at Hartlepool (~1.5 million homes powered, ~~2,500 jobs), an overall UK-wide 6 GW AMR fleet, SMR or microreactor projects like Holtec’s data center plan in Nottinghamshire. Total economic impact estimated at ~£40 billion. **By the numbers:** - Licensing cut: from ~3–4 years to ~2 years; - Hartlepool: up to 12 Xe-100 AMRs, ~1.5 million homes, ~2,500 jobs; - UK-wide fleet target: ~6 GW AMRs; - Project value: ~£40 billion total, £12 billion concentrated in Northeast. ## 4. Microsoft joins World Nuclear Association as it doubles down on SMRs and fusion energy Microsoft has become the first major global tech firm to join the World Nuclear Association to accelerate its shift toward clean power sources—including SMRs and fusion—to support data center energy needs. It also has a 20-year PPA with Constellation Energy to restart Three Mile Island Unit 1. **By the numbers:** - 20-year PPA (duration) with Constellation; - First tech giant to join WNA; no GW numbers disclosed, but TMI restart likely ~800 MWe scale. **Signal:** Does Microsoft’s entry into the WNA signal an interest in vertical integration? That seems impossible, but it isn’t. Amazon, the online book seller, was, years ago, similarly unlikely to backwards vertically integrate into owning, operating, and selling the services of the servers it used for it’s online store (AWS). ## 5. EIA projects gas prices to fall to 20-year lows by 2026 The EIA forecasts U.S. gas prices to drop by nearly 50%, reaching their lowest in two decades by 2026, easing consumer and industrial expenses. **By the numbers:** - Forecasted price drop: ~50%; - U.S. retail gasoline to go from ~$3.30/gallon (2024) to ~$2.90/gallon (2026). **Signal:** Gas prices are not a huge amount of consumer’s total expenditures. For the average American it’s about 2%. However, a 50% drop in gas prices would also lead to indirect cost reductions as costs in the supply chain go down—oil is the input into almost everything we buy, from plastics to the transportation fuel for our groceries. The average American could save $700 at the pump and about as much in indirect costs, for a total savings of $1,400. Feel free to email me your thoughts—or leave them in the comments below. — Goran --- Source: https://gorancalic.com/llm/essays/2025-09-09-issue-25-gas-surges-renewables-stall.md # Issue #25: Gas Surges, Renewables Stall, Nuclear Rises Published on Goran Calic's Substack on September 9, 2025. Original: https://gorancalic.substack.com/p/issue-25-gas-surges-renewables-stall *This issue covers energy news from the week of September 1 - 7, 2025* ## 1. U.S. Gas Capacity Rises as Renewables Slow U.S. developers are pivoting toward natural gas and hydropower while renewable energy project pipelines shrink, though nuclear additions also edge upward. **By the numbers:** Natural gas projects under development exceed 114,000 MW (more than double last year); hydropower adds 36,000 MW; nuclear brings nearly 8,000 MW. Clean energy share climbs from 39 % to 44 %; coal drops to 12 %. **Signal:** Greater investment in gas and hydro likely benefits utilities like **DUK** and **NRG** with gas and hydro assets; modest nuclear gains may aid **NEE**, **EXC**, and **EIX** which have nuclear exposure. ## 2. Optimism Over Nuclear Waste Recycling in U.S. Oklo and Curio are advancing plans to recycle nuclear waste into reactor fuel; Oklo is developing a $1.68 billion Tennessee project, backed by DOE momentum under new executive actions. **By the numbers:** $1.68 billion project; two startups gaining ground; fuel recycling ramp-up after decades of dormancy. **Signal:** Very favorable for **OKLO** and potentially fuels resource firms like **UEC**, **DNN**, **UUUU**, and **CCJ** if recycling scales; DOE support helps **CENTRUS** and **FLR** via fuel and tech pathways. ## 3. Vistra Surges Amid AI-Driven Nuclear Demand Vistra Corp. is riding a nuclear renaissance driven by AI data center power needs. Q2 revenue rose 10.6% to $4.25 billion, though net income fell 10% to $327 million. Stock is up ~30% in 2025, with bullish long-term earnings. **By the numbers:** Q2 revenue $4.25 B (↑10.6%); net income $327 M (↓10%); 2026 EBITDA midpoint raised; stock up 30% YTD; 2024 surge was 258%. **Signal:** Major upside for **VST**; tech-nuclear partnerships boost nuclear visibility; competitors like **NEE**, **EXC**, and **NRG** may find renewed interest. ## 4. Record Nuclear Generation Worldwide in 2024 Global nuclear output hit a record 2,667 TWh in 2024 (beating the previous high from 2006), with average capacity factors reaching 83%. Asia led with 56 of 68 newly commissioned reactors; 70 reactors under construction globally. **By the numbers:** 2,667 TWh; 83% average capacity factor; >60% of reactors at >80% factor; 68 new reactors in last decade; 70 under construction. **Signal:** Reinforces global nuclear momentum—beneficial for **CCJ**, **GEV**, **BWXT**, and **SMR** across supply chain; U.S. firms like **CENTRUS**, **FLR**, **OKLO**, **NNE** also stand to gain from expanding demand. ## 5. Trump administration favors nuclear as “more American” energy The administration framed nuclear energy—made with predominantly U.S. components—as preferable over wind and solar, positioning it for loan guarantees and tax incentives as part of the broader “energy dominance” strategy. **By the numbers:** Funding framed within a ~$57 billion energy spending bill; nuclear prioritized over offshore wind assets like Revolution Wind. **Signal:** Boost for **CENTRUS**, **NNE**, **CCJ**, **GEV** through domestic nuclear supply chain emphasis; potential headwind for renewable-focused utilities like **NEE**, **DUK**. ## 6. Uranium supply shortfall threatens nuclear expansion A World Nuclear Association report warns that global uranium demand could rise from 86,000 t in 2030 to 150,000 t by 2040, while mine output may halve, exposing a significant supply gap. **By the numbers:** Demand up ~75%; production potentially down ~50%; uranium mining projects take 10–20 years to launch. **Signal:** Positive tailwind for uranium miners such as **CCJ**, **UEC**, **NEXGEN (NXE)**, **DNN**, and **UUUU**. Pressure also mounts on firms like **CENTRUS** for enrichment capacity. ## 7. SPACs and executive orders spur nuclear investment boom Westinghouse aims to build 10 AP1000 reactors by 2030, supported by SPAC-backed SMR startups like NuScale and Oklo, whose stock prices have surged amid improved regulatory environment from Trump-era executive orders. **By the numbers:** 10 AP1000 reactors planned; SPAC-backed nuclear startups moving toward public listings by end of 2025. **Signal:** Strong upside for **SMR**, **OKLO**, **NU SCALE (SMR)**; strategic repositioning for **CAMECO (CCJ)** through Westinghouse affiliation. ## 8. House narrowly passes spending bill supporting Trump’s energy priorities The House approved a FY 2026 energy spending bill (214–213) favoring nuclear and fossil fuels over clean energy, with ~ $57 billion in total funding—a slight cut (~$766 million) from the prior year. Proposed DOE clean-energy program cuts were rejected. **By the numbers:** Vote margin 1 seat; $57 B funding total; ~ $766 M reduction YoY. **Signal:** Policy tailwinds for nuclear-aligned firms—**CENTRUS**, **OKLO**, **FLR**, **CCJ**—while clean-energy uniques like **NEE**, **WEC**, **DUK** may face relative headwinds. Feel free to email me your thoughts—or leave them in the comments below. — Goran --- Source: https://gorancalic.com/llm/essays/2025-09-02-issue-24-the-hidden-cost-of-risk.md # Issue #24: The Hidden Cost of Risk in LCOE Calculations Published on Goran Calic's Substack on September 2, 2025. Original: https://gorancalic.substack.com/p/issue-24-the-hidden-cost-of-risk ## RECAP In a previous Substack post, I wrote about the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE)—describing briefly how it is derived using the CVOW (Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind) project as a guiding example. The punchline of that post was: We must add a “firming cost” to the LCOE of intermittent renewables. For CVOW, it was about an additional $42/MWh on top of the $120/MWh cost of the project, for a total cost of about $162/MWh of electricity. The image below is the high-end of LCOE for a variety of sources of electricity according to the most recent Lazard v18.0 model (without the firming costs). The firming costs are in the next image and, like I wrote about, depend on where the renewables are being installed. Of course, this is not an argument against intermittent renewables. Just a clarification of *how* decision are made about whether to build or not to build an energy project. All sources of electricity require such decisions, and making such decisions is hard because they require lots of educated guessing. For example, even the above firming costs are a guess. They will ultimately depend on future costs of firming sources (e.g., the future price of natural gas for natural gas power plants or the future price of lithium for battery storage facilities). The cost of firming will even depend on the weather (e.g., if weather is unfavourable—a really cloudy winter for solar—, the need, and therefore the cost, of firming goes up). ## Accounting for Project Risk In LCOE In this week’s post, I also want to write about a really important assumption of all LCOE calculations—the inherent risk factor of a project (“risk” from this point forward). Fundamentally, the risk of a project is captured by two variables: (1) Cost of Debt (in percentage terms) and (2) Cost of Equity (in percentage terms). Taken together, these two variables can be “averaged” to get a “weighted average cost of capital” (WACC). In addition to the cost of capital, WACC will depend on the capital structure, which is the proportion of debt to equity. These two variables represent what capital providers (banks for debt and investors for equity) need to get paid in order to provide money for projects. Higher percentages mean the capital providers need to be paid more for the same amount of money provided. For example, if a capital provider issues $1,000,000 in capital at a 10% cost of capital for 1 year, at the end of that year they expect their $1,000,000 back + $100,000 for lending the money. That extra $100,000 is what the capital provider needs to be paid for taking on the risk that they may not be paid back in time, or paid back at all. Should that cost go to 20%, the capital provider would expect their $1M back + $200,000. Why may cost of capital go up? For lots of reasons. Some projects are inherently more risky than others, some lenders are inherently less stable or reliable in making payments than others. For example, a project may get cancelled for political reasons or a borrower may go bankrupt because of negligence (as in the case of PG&E’s liabilities for California wildfires). As should be clear from the example above, the cost of capital really matters. It makes projects more expensive without the need for any more material or labour costs. That is, for two identical projects (same amount of concrete poured, steel used, and workers hired) a project with a higher capital cost will be more expensive—and in terms of the LCOE, it will increase the LCOE. That is, the ratepayers (you) will need to pay more for your electricity because capital providers demand to be paid more. This isn’t because capital providers are greedy or unfair, but because not every project is identical and because uncertainty exists. (The principle is the same with car and home loans—if your credit score is better, the loan will be cheaper (lower %) because the bank has some evidence to suggest you are more likely to make payments on time.) With all of that in mind, we can think of the cost of capital as a credit ranking for projects. Most LCOE calculations assume all projects have the same cost of capital. That is a big assumption. As Michael and I argue on our podcast, that is rarely the case. ## Risk Inherent in Projects: A CVOW Example Let’s take the CVOW project as an example again—a project I argue on the podcast is actually fairly risky. I make the argument it’s risky because **(1)** only one ship in the entire USA can service CVOW, **(2)** we know little about the lifetime and operation of large windfarms, because they haven’t been around long enough for us to learn about those risks, and **(3)** offshore wind farms, like offshore gas pipelines, are more vulnerable to sabotage than inland sources of electricity (offshore wind and risk management). Let’s run some quick numbers for CVOW again. Our initial calculation of CVOW’s $120/MWh LCOE use an 8% Cost of Debt and a 12% Cost of Equity. At a 40% proportion of equity and 60% in debt, that is a 9.6% WACC. Keeping that capital structure the same, if we increase cost of equity to 16%, CVOW’s LCOE increases to $136/MWh. WACC goes up to 11.2%. These two examples are intended to illustrate how changing the underlying risk changes the cost of exactly the same project, without any change in how well or fast we execute on such projects. I pulled the above capital structure, with the debt and equity costs, from Lazard’s latest Levelized Cost of Energy. I do think those costs are a bit on the high end—according to industry averages, non-water utilities should have a WACC of about 5.20%. But remember, that 5.2% is the average capital cost for the entire company and all of its projects (in this case it’s an average for all non-water utilities in the US and all of their projects). Some projects are going to be riskier while others less risky. In other words, some projects will have higher, while other will have lower WACC. Keep in mind too that the cost of capital makes more capitally intensive projects more costly. That is because a larger base (cost of a project) means the same capital cost is higher. 10% on $10B is more than 10% on $100M. ## Why Nuclear LCOE is Likely Overestimated For the reasons above nuclear LCOE are likely overestimated. Nuclear projects are relatively low risk—they run reliably, safely, and for a long time. We have lots of evidence of that—100 power plants have run for decades in the United States alone. The fuel supply is relatively secure (Canada has lots of it). Nuclear energy’s largest uncertainty is regulatory and construction. First, given enough public pressure, a nuclear project may be shut down. For example, all of Germany’s nuclear power plants were shut down early. Second, nuclear projects tend to run more over time than other large projects. Thus, there is a risk of not knowing when the project will start generating electricity. There is even a risk the project is never completed. While I believe that nuclear energy projects are less risky than intermittent renewables (remember, even the weather affects the “risk” of renewables) LCOE estimates for nuclear usually use the same underlying (very high) cost of capital to calculate LCOE. Given nuclear energy’s really high capital cost, these higher capital costs disproportionally affect nuclear energy’s LCOE. You can notice by the slope of the line in the image below how nuclear energy’s LCOE is the most sensitive to cost of capital assumptions. ## Final Thoughts—It’s Complicated How we determine the relative risk of projects is really complicated. Nevertheless, in my best estimate, the risks of nuclear have been overestimated and those of intermittent renewables underestimated. That isn’t to say nuclear is always the best bet or is always the cheapest source of energy. Return back to CVOW, the Trump Administration has recently halted the construction of a multi-billion dollar wind farm in Rhode Island and Connecticut. CVOW now faces the same risk. Non-technical “political” risk will make all projects more costly—renewable and nuclear. Energy projects require more regulatory stability. Feel free to email me your thoughts—or leave them in the comments below. — Goran --- Source: https://gorancalic.com/llm/essays/2025-08-26-ais-electricity-shock-how-data-centers.md # Issue #23: AI’s Electricity Shock: How Data Centers Are Rewriting the U.S. Grid Published on Goran Calic's Substack on August 26, 2025. Original: https://gorancalic.substack.com/p/ais-electricity-shock-how-data-centers **TL;DR:** Data centers already use ~4–5% of U.S. electricity. By 2028, U.S. data‑center demand could **nearly triple**, pushing toward **325–580 TWh/year**—roughly on par with what **Germany** consumed in 2023. Most of that growth concentrates in a handful of states led by **Virginia**, **Texas**, and **California**. The build‑out now underway isn’t just more servers, it’s new power plants, high‑voltage lines, substations, and transformers. ### **The short version: AI changed the math** In a recent piece for *Harvard Business Review*, I argued that tech firms and power suppliers face a shared strategy problem: **timing**—AI demand ramps in months, but firm, clean power takes years to build. That mismatch is why Big Tech is signing 10–20‑year energy deals and exploring nuclear, gas, and hybrid solutions right now. I made a similar case in *The Conversation*: AI’s around‑the‑clock compute makes **reliable, low‑carbon baseload** unusually valuable. At a global level, data‑center electricity use is already **~415 TWh in 2024** and on track to **roughly double by 2030**. The U.S. and China will drive nearly 80% of that growth—accelerated servers for AI are the key driver. ### **How we got here (and why the curve bent):** - **Early 2000s:** Data‑center electricity roughly **doubled from 2000 to 2005** (globally), then rose more modestly from 2005–2010 as the industry began squeezing out efficiency gains. - **2010–2018:** Compute exploded, but energy use barely moved—hyperscale designs, virtualization, and better cooling kept the line nearly flat. Classic “do more with less.” - **2018–today:** The curve bent upward. Cloud, streaming, and especially **AI** drove a step‑change. In the U.S., Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (LBNL) estimates data centers used **~176 TWh in 2023 (≈4.4% of U.S. electricity)**; by **2028** the same report’s scenarios range **325–580 TWh**. That high end is roughly **Germany’s total electricity** in 2023 (**~508 TWh**). ### **What makes AI so power‑hungry?** Training takes **days to months** with racks of accelerators running near thermal limits and cooling them also consumes energy. After training, **inference** (serving answers/recommendations) scales to billions of daily requests. Careful estimates put individual AI requests in the **watt‑hours** range (not milliwatts): e.g., **~2.9–4.0 Wh** per prompt for popular LLMs in one analysis. Integrating such models into everyday products, search, feeds, productivity apps, multiplies the load. ### **Where the load lands (and why that matters):** Data‑center demand doesn’t spread evenly across the map, it **piles into a few hubs** with the right fiber, land, tax policy, and utility rates. - **Virginia** is the standout. Data centers already account for **more than one‑fifth of Dominion Energy’s electricity sales**—and unconstrained demand could **double statewide power demand within a decade**, according to the state’s own legislative review. - **Texas** and **California** are next in line, with **Illinois** and **Oregon** among other major clusters. EPRI estimates **~80% **of U.S. data‑center electricity will concentrate in about **15 states** this decade. Why it matters: These are **point loads**, tens to hundreds of megawatts per site. Clustering strains **local substations and transmission corridors**, and it shifts regional planning from incremental upgrades to **gigawatt‑scale** additions. ### **What the next three years look like (realistically):** - **Load growth:** U.S. data‑center electricity use **could nearly triple** by **2028** (325–580 TWh), depending on chip supply, siting, and efficiency. Even the low end implies a **historic** rise in U.S. power demand. - **Global context:** The IEA’s base case has global data‑center consumption **doubling to ~945 TWh by 2030**—with AI accelerators responsible for much of the increase. IEA - **Local reality:** Meeting “unconstrained” data‑center demand in Virginia alone would require **massive new generation and transmission**; the state is already studying **co‑location** and “**bring‑your‑own‑generation**” approaches for data‑center developers. Expect similar conversations across PJM, ERCOT, and CAISO. ### **So… who builds what?** **Generation:** Some utilities will build; independent power producers will build; and increasingly, **data‑center operators will procure or develop dedicated supply**—from gas peakers to long‑term **nuclear** (life extensions, restarts, SMR options), and hybrid renewable+storage portfolios. The driver isn’t just carbon—it’s **24/7 availability**. **Wires & transformers:** Even with dedicated generation, you still need **interconnection capacity**: high‑voltage lines, substations, and transformers. Lead times for large transformers can be **measured in years**, which is why siting near existing capacity—or near generation—is suddenly strategic. (Virginia’s JLARC study models just how hard “meet‑it‑all” scenarios are without accelerating grid builds.) **Efficiency:** AI’s power curve isn’t destiny. Higher‑efficiency chips, better model architectures, liquid cooling, and smarter scheduling can bend it. But as EPRI notes, average PUE improvements have **stalled around ~1.6** in recent years; squeezing more out will require **next‑gen** designs and operational flexibility. ### **What this means for leaders (tech, utilities, regulators):** - **Time is the strategic bottleneck.** AI roadmaps move quarterly; power plants and lines move on **multi‑year** cycles. The firms that align build schedules with compute ramps will ship more AI…consistently. (That’s the core argument in my HBR piece.) - **Geography is a first‑order variable.** The cheapest “new” megawatt is avoiding a congested node. Watch for more **siting around firm power** (restarts, uprates, co‑located generation) and **transmission‑friendly corridors**. - **Reliability beats everything.** When inference is product‑critical, “five nines” requires power that doesn’t blink. That’s why 24/7 PPAs, on‑site backup, and even **behind‑the‑meter** generation are moving from edge cases to standard playbooks. ### **Further reading:** - **Strategy & timing:** *Harvard Business Review*, “Tech Companies, Nuclear Power, and the Problem of Strategic Timing.” Harvard Business Review - **Why firm power matters for AI:** *The Conversation*, “AI is consuming more power than the grid can handle — nuclear might be the answer.” Brighter World - **U.S. outlook:** LBNL press release on the 2024 United States Data Center Energy Usage Report (2023 baseline; 2028 scenarios). The Department of Energy's Energy.gov - **Global outlook:** IEA, *Energy & AI* (2025), on today’s ~415 TWh, 2030 projections, and what’s driving the load. IEA - **Why the line was flat (2010–2018):** Masanet et al., *Science* (2020). - https://www.epri.com/research/products/3002028905 - https://escholarship.org/uc/item/32d6m0d1 Feel free to email me your thoughts—or leave them in the comments below. — Goran --- Source: https://gorancalic.com/llm/essays/2025-08-22-ais-power-diet-canadas-nuclear-upside-d5c.md # AI’s Power Diet, Canada’s Nuclear Upside, and the Picks and Shovels to Build It Published on Goran Calic's Substack on August 22, 2025. Original: https://gorancalic.substack.com/p/ais-power-diet-canadas-nuclear-upside-d5c In the 31st installment of *The Atomic Exchange Podcast*, co-hosts Dr. Goran Calic and Michael Tadrous open with quick updates and note that "Cooling Under Fire" is now on SSRN. They touch on peer-review norms, then dive into another Business of Nuclear episode: this time a winners-and-losers scan. Goran maps the U.S. AI load surge from 30 TWh in 2000 to 600 TWh by 2028, led by Virginia, Texas, and California, and flags utilities set for major buildout (Dominion, Sempra) and OEMs with momentum (Westinghouse, GE Hitachi, NuScale). Michael zooms in on Canada, highlighting likely beneficiaries such as BWX Technologies, Cameco/Westinghouse, AtkinsRéalis, and CAE for workforce training, with potential long-run share pressure on gas and some renewables developers. They compare workforce bottlenecks, bridging trades into nuclear, and why Canada’s uranium base and CANDU cycle provide unusual supply security. The episode closes with a simple lens on AI power: more wires, more concrete, more reactors, and a grid ready for 24/7 demand. Tune in for a concise, numbers-first tour of AI-era electricity and the companies most likely to win or fall behind as nuclear scales. --- Source: https://gorancalic.com/llm/essays/2025-08-19-issue-22-the-hidden-cost-of-renewables.md # Issue #22: The Hidden Cost of Renewables, Nuclear Expansion in India, and Google's SMR Bet Published on Goran Calic's Substack on August 19, 2025. Original: https://gorancalic.substack.com/p/issue-22-the-hidden-cost-of-renewables ## Are We Ignoring the Biggest Line Item in Clean Energy? Last week I wrote about firming costs for Dominion’s CVOW (Coastal Virginal Offshore Wind) project, which is expected to cost around $11.8B for 2.6GW of nameplate capacity. At an expected 42-50% average yearly capacity, that is an average 1.092-1.3GW of electricity. This week I’d like to highlight how firming up that uncertainty may differ, particularly in cost, across grids, particularly depending on existing renewable penetration (the amount of renewables already on the grid). #### **The Logic of Firming Up Renewables** Yet, as I wrote last week, we can never be certain of the exact amount of electricity these wind turbines will generate. In the summer (expected average capacity of 35% for 0.91GW), it’s likely less than in the winter (expected average capacity of 55% for 1.43GW). Moreover, Dominion must plan for 0% capacity—whether that is for hours, days, or even weeks at a time. That is why Dominion must also plan for additional “firming capacity” to be build along with the wind farms. Firming capacity usually takes the form of gas power plants, and more recently batteries. This does not mean new gas power plants must be built. It could be the case that existing gas power plants (or other firm sources, like nuclear power plants or coal power plants) are just run more often. In any case, Dominion is planning for more electricity consumption and it must plan to provide (supply) that electricity when it is needed, not only when the wind blows. For that reason, Dominion must plan with about an additional $42/MWh for each $120/MWh invested into CVOW. (Once again, that additional $42/MWh is the cost of either build, operating, or fueling existing firming sources.) #### **Firming Costs are a Function of Renewable Penetration** ** **Many grid operators use effective load-carrying capability (ELCC) to measure a new power generator's contribution to overall grid reliability. The higher the ELCC, the better, as it means the source can be depended upon to be available during times of high demand. (An ELCC score of 100% means a source contributes its full capacity during these critical periods, while a score of 0% means it provides no reliable contribution.) ELCC values can be derived for all sources of electricity. Dispatchable sources like natural gas, nuclear, and coal receive very high scores, close to 100%. In contrast, variable renewables like wind and solar get much lower scores. In the United States, these can range from about 7% to 50%. This value depends on where the renewables are installed. For instance, if solar is installed in a location with excellent solar resources and little existing solar capacity, its ELCC will be relatively high. However, its ELCC will be much lower in a less sunny location or a region that already has a high penetration of solar power. ELCC is also an indicator of the integration costs for renewables, specifically the cost of the “firming” capacity needed to back them up. A lower ELCC means firming costs will be higher. For example, on the California grid (CAISO), solar has an ELCC of only 7%. This means that while a new megawatt-hour (MWh) of solar might cost around $51, it can create an estimated $86 in additional firming costs to ensure reliability. Solar penetration in California is approximately 23%, and the total intermittent renewable penetration (solar and wind) is about 35%. This, of course, is a much hiring firm cost than what Dominion expects for CVOW. Therefore, the ultimate cost of renewables will depend on their base cost + a firming cost (which will itself depend on existing renewable penetration and the cost of the firming sources). With that framing on firming costs in mind, here’s what stood out in the news this week: #### 1. India plans to scale up nuclear capacity over ten-fold by 2047 On August 15, Indian PM Modi pledged to expand the country's nuclear generation capacity more than tenfold by the year 2047. **By the numbers**: >10× increase in nuclear capacity by 2047. **Signal**: India is working on a number of indigenous nuclear reactor technologies, including a Bharat SMR. India’s Uranium supply is relatively diversified, coming from Canada, Kazakstan, Russia, and from local sources. #### 2. Google selects Oak Ridge for SMR project with Kairos Power Google, partnering with Kairos Power, chose Oak Ridge, Tennessee for a future small modular reactor to supply its data centers by 2030, under TVA PPA, targeting 500 MW (≈350,000 homes), first U.S. Gen IV nuclear utility deal. **By the numbers**: 500 MW capacity; ~350,000 homes served; operational by 2030. **Signal**: Both the DOE and Google have supported Kairos’ molten salt SMRs. Kairos’ technology is relatively complicated. Rather than use water as coolant, it uses a molten fluoride salt mixture. Its fuel, TRISO, is also a more complex fuel to manufacture than that used in more traditional PWR and BWR reactors. #### 3. DOE selects 11 advanced reactor projects under fast-track pilot program On August 12, DOE launched a Reactor Pilot Program selecting 11 advanced reactor projects aiming for at least 3 test reactors to reach criticality by July 4, 2026. **By the numbers**: 11 projects selected; ≥ 3 reactors expected to go critical by Jul 4, 2026. **Signal**: Firms in the list include Oklo Inc—this boosts **OKLO**. Firms like NuScale (SMR) and GE Vernon (GEV) are likely not listed because they are further along in development than the 11 companies listed on the announcement. #### 4. South Korea's nuclear power output surges as coal use plunges Nuclear output up 8.7 % YoY H1 2025, coal generation down 16 %, coal imports fell 8 %, saving ~$15.4 B in 2024; nuclear now ~31.7 % share vs 25.9 % in 2019, coal ~28.1 % share. **By the numbers**: +8.7 % nuclear output; –16 % coal generation; –8 % coal imports, ~$15.4 B saved; nuclear share ~31.7 %, coal ~28.1 %. **Signal**: This points to the potential of nuclear power to reliably reduce greenhouse gas emissions and reduce electricity costs at the same time. #### 5. Denver considers SMR for airport power; feasibility study funded Denver International Airport (DEN) begins a feasibility study (~$1.25 million, 6–12 months) to power the airport via a ~300 MW small modular reactor, enabled by state clean‑energy law; project delayed for community input. **By the numbers**: $1.25 M study; 300 MW capacity; timeline 6–12 months. **Signal**: While no SMR has yet been selected, it is important to note that just a couple of years ago no one would consider putting nuclear power plants closer to airplanes. Yet here we are. #### 6. U.S. power price politics heat up ahead of midterms Electricity prices rise (driven by AI demand and electrification) while gasoline prices fall; Democrats blamed for rising utility costs post‑renewable subsidy phase‑out; EPA's greenhouse-gas regulation rollback draws legal pushback; expanded nuclear waste storage approved in New Mexico. **By the numbers**: Not specified, implying a wide cost divergence. **Signal**: Given that firming costs increase with renewable penetration, it’s unlikely renewables will be the solution to increasing energy pricess. Instead, it’s likely to be cheap gas, at least in the short term, and likely nuclear in the longer term. #### 7. Nuclear revival needs more than financial optimism, letter warns U.S. electricity demand could rise ~25 % by 2030 due to AI, semiconductors, electrification; data centers may consume 8 % of power vs. 3 % now—financial optimism alone won't suffice given regulatory fragmentation and investor hesitation. **By the numbers**: 25 % surge in U.S. power demand by 2030; data centers share rising from 3 % to 8 %. **Signal**: This underscores risks for utilities like **NEE**, **XEL**, **DUK**, and **SO**—they’ll face infrastructure strain amid demand spikes; clean-energy tech firms like **NUCLEAR SMR, GEV**, and **BWXT** stand to benefit if deployment hurdles are cleared. Feel free to email me your thoughts—or leave them in the comments below. — Goran --- Source: https://gorancalic.com/llm/essays/2025-08-18-ai-demos-workforce-math-and-answering-bdc.md # AI Demos, Workforce Math, and Answering Nuclear’s Critics Published on Goran Calic's Substack on August 18, 2025. Original: https://gorancalic.substack.com/p/ai-demos-workforce-math-and-answering-bdc In the 30th installment of *The Atomic Exchange Podcast*, co-hosts Dr. Goran Calic and Michael Tadrous open with lab updates: early demos of their custom AI for the Canadian nuclear sector with McMaster Nuclear Operations & Facilities and Ontario Power Generation (OPG), plus a check-in on a new workforce input–output model and paper on what it would take to triple Canada’s nuclear capacity by 2050. They also pause to explain what the lab actually studies at the intersection of nuclear, economics, and policy. Then they run another Good Science vs Bad Science segment, taking apart an anti-nuclear op-ed. Point by point they test claims about build times, costs, and LCOE sources, add firming and financing where it belongs, and compare real-world grids like France and Germany. They look at mining risks across uranium, solar, wind, and hydro, clarify what “meltdown” rates really mean, and show how waste is stored and tracked. The takeaway is simple: fix execution and timelines, keep existing plants running where safe, and judge technologies on apples-to-apples numbers that reflect how power systems actually work. Tune in for another thoughtful discussion on all things nuclear. --- Source: https://gorancalic.com/llm/essays/2025-08-11-issue-21-powering-the-ai-era-nuclear.md # Issue #21: Powering the AI Era - Nuclear, Offshore Wind, and Grid Strategies Take Center Stage Published on Goran Calic's Substack on August 11, 2025. Original: https://gorancalic.substack.com/p/issue-21-powering-the-ai-era-nuclear ### 1. Fermi America’s “Hypergrid” Project Powers AI Data-Center Campus in Texas Fermi America unveiled a massive 5,800‑acre energy campus near Amarillo: “Hypergrid” will deploy 4.4 GW of nuclear capacity (AP1000s) plus solar, battery, and gas—1 GW due online by 2026. **By the numbers:** 4.4 GW nuclear; 1 GW delivered by 2026; site spans 5,800 acres; Texas provides $350M in nuclear incentives. **Signal:** Major upside for **Westinghouse** (AP1000 supply), and for utilities and infrastructure players like **Sempra (SRE)** or **NextEra (NEE)** active in hybrid energy projects. ### 2. Google to Pause AI Data-Center Loads During Grid Stress Google will flexibly reduce AI compute workloads in coordination with Indiana Michigan Power and the Tennessee Valley Authority during peak grid demand. **By the numbers:** 51 % rise in Google’s emissions over five years; demand-response agreements with two utilities. **Signal:** Positive for utilities like **AEP**, **WEC**, and others managing grid loads. Tech firms may lean on **NRG**/**NextEra (NEE)** for responsive power solutions. ### 3. Data Center Power Burden Shifts in Ohio Central Ohio residents are seeing ~$27 higher monthly electricity bills as data centers ramp up demand. **By the numbers:** ~ $27 extra per household per month; PUCO now requires new large data centers to pay for at least 85% of contracted energy over 12 years. **Signal:** Hard‐hit will be utilities like **AEP** (AEP), which must manage grid stress and policy changes; also a positive tailwind for **NRG** and **NextEra (NEE)** if they can offer backup or data-center-tailored power solutions. ### 4. Arizona APS Reverses Clean Energy Goal Arizona Public Service dropped its 2050 “100% clean energy” pledge, replacing it with a goal to become merely “carbon neutral.” **By the numbers:** 100 % clean → carbon neutral by 2050; new natural gas supply via a 600-mile pipeline from West Texas starting 2029. **Signal:** Utilities like **SO** and **SRE** active in Southwest gas infrastructure may benefit; **NextEra (NEE)** and other renewables-focused firms lose relative competitive advantage in AZ. ### 5. Nuclear Energy Gains Market Momentum Nuclear stocks are surging, driven by AI/data center demand and policy support. Microsoft’s backing of the Three Mile Island restart and projections of 165 % growth in data‑center power use by 2030 are key catalysts. **By the numbers:** 165 % projected rise in data-center power demand; U.S. target of 500 GW nuclear capacity by 2050. **Signal:** Strong upside for **OKLO (OKLO)** and **NANO Nuclear Energy (NNE)** in SMR/domain; **Constellation (CEG)** gains via TMI-1 restart; **BWXT (BWXT)** benefits via supply chain partnerships. ### 6. Xcel (XEL) Stock Hits New High on Defensive Rally Xcel Energy climbed 1.05% on August 4, setting a new 52‑week high (~$74.24), though slightly underperforming broader indices. **By the numbers:** +1.05% stock gain; volume ~5.9M vs 50-day avg of ~3.1M shares. **Signal:** A defensive positioning advantage—for XEL, and peers like **DUK**, **SO**, **PCG**—as rate-cut expectations and market volatility drive investor interest. ### 7. Micro–Nuclear Reactors Target Remote Clean-Energy Needs Mobile microreactors (~1 MW) are being developed for off‑grid use—mines, industrial sites—with Idaho lab testing and firms like Nano Nuclear, BWXT, Radiant, and Westinghouse racing to commercialize. **By the numbers:** ≈1 MW output (~1,000 homes), deployment targeted for 2030s, footprint ~2 acres. **Signal:** Boost for **NANO NUCLEAR ENERGY (NNE)**, **BWXT (BWXT)**, and **GE VERNOVA (GEV)** via modular nuclear tech innovation. ### 8. NASA Plans to Add 100 kW Nuclear Reactor on the Moon by 2030 NASA announced a mission to deploy a 100‑kilowatt nuclear fission reactor on the Moon, enabling sustained lunar operations and future Mars missions. **By the numbers:** 100 kW output (vs earlier 40 kW prototypes); targeted by 2030. **Signal:** Long-horizon opportunity for suppliers like **BWXT** and **GE VERNOVA** in advanced nuclear systems. ### 9. Dominion Energy: CVOW Project at 60% Completion Dominion Energy’s Q2 2025 earnings call revealed the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) project is now 60% complete, with first electricity delivery expected in early 2026—despite delays in the turbine installation vessel *Charybdis*. Once completed, CVOW will provide roughly 2.6GW of nameplate capacity. The project’s total capital cost is now projected at about $10.9 billion, including approximately $193 million in estimated tariff impacts and up to $506 million in potential tariff exposure. **By the numbers:** ~60% complete; first electricity by Q1 2026; capex ~$10.9 B. **Signal:** As one of the largest regulated utilities building offshore wind, Dominion’s execution offers lessons for peers like DUK, SO, and SRE on both delivery and regulatory navigation. Supply chain players such as BWXT and GE Vernova (GEV) could benefit if CVOW remains on schedule. The *Charybdis* delay highlights persistent logistical risks, but maintaining full-year guidance signals disciplined project management. These figures tell us where CVOW stands operationally. But whether it’s worth the cost—especially for ratepayers, Dominion, and its investors—hinges on one crucial metric: the Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE). The LCOE is like a dashboard—it distills all the costs and benefits of generating electricity into a single figure. It includes the cost of fuel (none for wind, by the way), maintenance (considerable for offshore turbines), and construction. It also reflects risk, incorporating the risk-adjusted returns banks and investors require from Dominion. The riskier the project, the higher the returns they demand—just in case they don’t get their money back. All of this is built into the LCOE. However, many assumptions go into producing that number, and those assumptions can be misleading. Some are relatively safe—such as the 2.6 GW nameplate capacity. CVOW’s 176 Siemens Gamesa turbines have well-understood output when the wind is blowing. Others are less certain—like the assumed 50% capacity factor, meaning that on average over the year, turbines are expected to produce about 1.3 GW. In reality, output varies: Dominion projects 55% in winter but only 35% in summer. On some days, it could be 0%—even for several days in a row. This assumption matters because the capacity factor determines how much additional “firming capacity” must be built for times when the wind isn’t blowing—costs beyond the LCOE. For CVOW, Dominion can expect firming capacity to cost about $42/MWh on top of the roughly $120/MWh base cost. Firming capacity—gas plants or batteries kept ready to fill the gap—acts as insurance against lulls in wind. The cost of firming capacity depends heavily on renewable penetration. In Virginia, wind and solar account for only about 10% of generation, keeping firming costs at around $42/MWh. In high-renewable states like California, that figure could rise to $80/MWh. This week’s focus just scratches the surface of LCOE. In the coming weeks, we’ll adjust key assumptions to see how they affect CVOW’s LCOE and compare it to Vogtle Units 3 and 4, as well as potential future nuclear builds. Feel free to email me your thoughts—or leave them in the comments below. — Goran --- Source: https://gorancalic.com/llm/essays/2025-08-08-golf-cutbacks-tabletop-therapy-and-ba1.md # Golf Cutbacks, Tabletop Therapy, and Dominion’s Offshore Wind Math Published on Goran Calic's Substack on August 8, 2025. Original: https://gorancalic.substack.com/p/golf-cutbacks-tabletop-therapy-and-ba1 In the 29th installment of *The Atomic Exchange Podcast*, co-hosts Dr. Goran Calic and Michael Tadrous start with Goran's recent “less golf, more miniatures” lifestyle change, trading four-hour rounds for meditative tabletop painting and a quick riff on career phases and moderation. Then they dig into Dominion’s Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project: 2.6 GW across 176 turbines with a $10.7B headline that feels like “almost three gigawatts” until you factor capacity (about 42% on average, weaker in summer), a 30-year life, and the firming needed when wind drops. Goran walks through the real planner math, including financing and why firming can add roughly $40 per MWh now and rise as renewables grow. They compare CVOW to Vogtle 3 & 4, noting the $32B “nuclear cost” hides interest on an overnight cost near $12.5B, and that faster builds and realistic risk pricing can bring firm nuclear to about $150 per MWh, under wind once firming and financing are counted. They also hit incentives and politics, regulated-utility pass-throughs, AI data centers that can’t curtail, and the unglamorous risks of offshore hardware, from corrosion to cut cables, in a country with just one new jack-up vessel. A candid, numbers-first episode on speed to grid versus longevity, and why Dominion’s short-run choice may still leave a long-run gap that nuclear can fill. --- Source: https://gorancalic.com/llm/essays/2025-08-04-issue-20-new-deals-new-risks-new.md # Issue #20: New Deals, New Risks, New Momentum in Nuclear Published on Goran Calic's Substack on August 4, 2025. Original: https://gorancalic.substack.com/p/issue-20-new-deals-new-risks-new This week's newsletter features an analysis of electricity generation supply from U.S. publicly traded utilities. Beyond the news, I’ll examine which companies offer the most generation capacity and supply for every dollar of market value. The table and a description are at the bottom of the newsletter. ### **1. Holtec’s Palisades restart formally re-licensed by NRC** Holtec’s Palisades plant regained operating status, reversing its decommissioning and clearing the way for commercial restart. **By the numbers**: First-ever U.S. NPP shift from decommissioning to live status; 800 MWe capacity; license restoration announced July 28. **Signal**: Strong positive for Holtec and indirectly supportive of Vistra (VST) if contracted for operations; also underscores regulatory openness benefitting future SMR players like NuScale (SMR) and BWXT (BWXT). (Although Holtec is planning to use their own SMR design, the SMR-300.) ### **2. Trump issues executive orders targeting rapid SMR deployment** President Trump mandated civilian pilot SMRs reach criticality by July 4, 2026, while expediting NRC licensing and enabling initial military reactor deployment within three years. **By the numbers**: Goal: 3 civilian SMRs + 1 military reactor; timeline ~1 year for civilian first criticality; quadruple U.S. nuclear capacity from 100 GW to 400 GW by 2050. **Signal**: Major signal for firms like BWXT, NuScale (SMR), Westinghouse, Holtec, OKLO, and other SMR designers to leverage expedited licensing and DOD/DOE deployment pathways. ### **3. Fukushima debris removal delayed to 2037** TEPCO announces full-scale removal of melted fuel debris at Fukushima Daiichi will be postponed until 2037 or later after more prep work is required. **By the numbers**: Delay adds ~12‑15 years to earlier timelines; first demolition work postponed to 2037; long‑term cleanup extended. **Signal**: Unknown. ### **4. Niger and Rosatom sign nuclear cooperation MoU** Russia’s Rosatom and Niger’s energy ministry formalize plans to collaborate on peaceful nuclear power and uranium development in West Africa. **By the numbers**: MoU signed July 29; includes uranium mining, nuclear development support; Niger joins growing list of African civil nuclear partners. **Signal**: Signals competition for Western firms such as Cameco (CCJ), Uranium Energy (UEC), and Denison (DNN) in global uranium supply and new builds. ### **Description of the Table** **1. Generation Capacity & Mix ($/GW Owned)** This section shows a utility's installed generation capacity (in Gigawatts) per $100 million of its market capitalization. The data is broken down by energy source to illustrate each company's generation mix. A dash (-) indicates no owned generation for that specific source. The energy mix is taken from each utilities 2024 10k, otherwise estimated. **2. Annual Energy Supplied ($/GWh)** This column presents the total annual energy supplied by each utility (in Gigawatt-hours) per $100 million of its market capitalization. This data is also retrieved from each company’s 10k, otherwise estimated. **3. Estimated AI Expansion** This section projects the potential impact of new AI data centers on each utility's business. This data is derived from the EPRI 2024 White Paper on AI, titled “Powering Intelligence.” Of the 4 scenarios, low-growth, moderate-growth, high-growth, and higher-growth, I use the “high-growth” scenario. My research suggests that this is the most likely scenario. - **"New GWh/year"** shows the estimated annual increase in energy (in GWh) that a utility will need to supply to meet demand from AI data centers in its service area. - **"% GWh/year Expansion"** expresses this new demand as a percentage of the utility's current annual energy supply. Feel free to email me your thoughts—or leave them in the comments below. — Goran --- Source: https://gorancalic.com/llm/essays/2025-08-01-supply-chain-bottlenecks-codification-6b8.md # Supply-Chain Bottlenecks, Codification Creep, and Mission-Driven Incentives Published on Goran Calic's Substack on August 1, 2025. Original: https://gorancalic.substack.com/p/supply-chain-bottlenecks-codification-6b8 In the 28th installment of *The Atomic Exchange Podcast*, co-hosts Dr. Goran Calic and Michael Tadrous welcome their first ever guest, Scott MacKinnon, Senior Director of Logistics & Supply-Chain Network Integration at EtherLog°. Scott recounts how Goran’s McMaster talk on “why standardization can slow nuclear builds” sparked a pub-side debate that now becomes a full episode on logistics. The trio unpack codification creep, ask why 75 % of craft labour often waits idle, and probe whether just-in-time delivery really fits multi-gigawatt projects or if local buffers and “zero-trust” micro-measurement are safer bets. They model a hypothetical four-unit program, debate which chokepoint (reactor pressure vessels, grid gear or regulatory sign-offs) most threatens a schedule, and swap ideas for Apollo-style medals, pain-and-gain contracts, and 100 % completion bonuses to turn nuclear megaprojects into a true mission. Tune in for supply-chain stories, systems thinking, and a fresh lens on how logistics could shave years (and billions) off the next reactor build. --- Source: https://gorancalic.com/llm/essays/2025-07-30-issue-19-new-sites-old-reactors-and.md # Issue #19: New Sites, Old Reactors, and the SMR Wave Published on Goran Calic's Substack on July 30, 2025. Original: https://gorancalic.substack.com/p/issue-19-new-sites-old-reactors-and ### **A quick note to readers:** I’ve been thinking about how this newsletter can deliver more direct value. While past editions offered solid coverage of nuclear and energy news, I now realize they sometimes required too much interpretation from you, the reader. The analysis was often abstract and too detached from the firms actually doing the work. So I’m changing that. Starting with this issue, I’ll explicitly connect each news item to the utilities, vendors, and other organizations likely to be impacted. The “Signal” section will now reflect my interpretation of which publicly traded companies or key players stand to gain (or lose) based on what’s happening. The geographic scope of the coverage won’t change. You’ll still get global stories, but the lens will increasingly highlight implications for U.S.-listed firms. That’s intentional—most of my readers are in North America or the EU, and that’s where the capital flows. To be clear: this isn’t investment advice, and I’m not endorsing any of these firms. But if you’re trying to make sense of how policy and nuclear deployment intersect with markets, this format should get you closer. I hope you like the change, and I remain open to feedback and ideas. Goran ### **1. UK and U.S. to cooper­ate on SMRs, Starmer says** UK PM Starmer called for deeper UK‑US collaboration on small modular reactors during his meeting with Trump in Scotland. **By the numbers:** UK has pledged £2.5 billion (~US$3.35B) toward Rolls‑Royce SMRs, aiming for ~1.5 GW capacity to power ~1.5 million homes. **Signal:** Where is the potential US collaboration and which firms stand to benefit from the UK investment? RR.L has collaborated with Fluor Corporation (FLR) to help Nuscale (SMR) commercialize their reactor technology. Constellation Energy is an investor in RR.L. ### **2. Kansai Electric revives plan for first reactor since Fukushima** Kansai Electric has resumed geological surveys at Mihama site, exploring prospects for a new nuclear reactor in Fukui Prefecture. **By the numbers:** Nuclear today provides ~8.5% of Japan’s electricity vs ~30% before 2011; goal is 20% by 2040. **Signal:** This is a fairly weak signal outside Japan. Japan controls the entire nuclear supply chain and has the technology for restarting and building nuclear reactors entirely on their own. Nevertheless, Japan’s goal of domestic nuclear expansion is positive news for GE Vernon (GEV), the owner of the GE Hitachi’s BWRX-300 SMR. ### **3. Wisconsin passes laws to fast‑track new nuclear siting** Governor Evers signed Acts 11 and 12 to evaluate nuclear and fusion siting at scale and mandate approval timelines. **By the numbers:** $2 million funding; 150‑day default approval for advanced reactor applications; PSC to report in 18 months. **Signal:** This could be the state with the next nuclear power plant re-start (second to TMI Unit 1) or a pre-approved site for another new nuclear build, small or large. Wisconsin has one operating NPP, Point Beach Nuclear Plant—owned and operated by NextEra (NEE). It, however, has a second NPP under decommissioning. EnergySolutions, who decommission NPPs, own the NPP and are working together with WEC Energy Group (WEC) on a new NPP sitting at that site. Kewaunee is a relatively small plant (574 MWe), however, the site is large enough for about 3x that nuclear capacity. WEC is stating they are exploring new nuclear generation technology on the site, meaning it’s unlikely the old plant is restarted. Kewaunee had an NRC license to operate until 2033 EOY, so it certainly could be restarted. ### **4. EDF Pulls Back from Overseas Nuclear Projects** France’s EDF is reducing overseas commitments and cutting jobs to concentrate wholly on domestic nuclear expansion under new CEO Bernard Fontana. **By the numbers:** Exact staffing cuts unspecified but significant; overseas bids scrapped in favor of home strategy **Signal:** If the EDF deprioritizes projects in “Poland, India, Canada and elsewhere outside Europe” it could also avoid projects in Bulgaria, Slovenia, Hungary, Slovakia, Estonia, and the Czech Republic. This opens the door for competitors like Westinghouse, CANDU, GE Vernova, NuScale, and others to pick up the slack. ### **5. Holtec’s Palisades Restart Approved by NRC** NRC cleared Holtec’s request to begin fuel loading at Michigan’s Palisades plant, marking a step toward its full commercial restart. **By the numbers:** 800 MWe capacity; enough to power ≈800,000 homes; restart targeted for Q4 2025; Holtec plans 10 GW SMR build‑out in North America with Hyundai. **Signal:** This would be the first nuclear power plant restart in the US. The Holtec plans to add two of its own SMR-300 SMRs to the site by early 2030s. Holtec will run the NPP and has a power purchase agreement (PPA) with two power cooperatives in the midwest for the entire duration of the NRC license. ### **6. First Hydrogen Expands SMR Design Collaboration in Canada** First Hydrogen Corp (Canada) partnered with University of Alberta to advance SMR design for clean energy innovation and domestic capacity building. **By the numbers:** Collaboration announced July 28; bolsters North American SMR design ecosystem; exact output unspecified. **Signal:** First Hydrogen Corp. (FHYD) produces hydrogen powered fleet vans. The powertrain platform can also be deployed for tractors, harvesters, boats, ferries, and backup power. They also seem to be working on hydrogen refuelling, and are now exploring SMRs. ### **Reader question of the week:** * Which matters more: SMR design approvals or actual grid‑connected reactors on the ground?* Feel free to email me your thoughts—or leave them in the comments below. — Goran --- Source: https://gorancalic.com/llm/essays/2025-07-25-airport-ammo-metas-energy-dilemma-9bf.md # Airport Ammo, Meta’s Energy Dilemma, and Launching The Business of Nuclear Published on Goran Calic's Substack on July 25, 2025. Original: https://gorancalic.substack.com/p/airport-ammo-metas-energy-dilemma-9bf In the 27th installment of *The Atomic Exchange Podcast*, co‑hosts Dr. Goran Calic and Michael Tadrous open with two case‑method deep dives. Goran debuts his new Harvard Business School case, *Meta’s Energy Dilemma*, where MBA teams weigh Llama’s vertical integration and whether Meta should own its own generation, trading land use, CO₂ and even “annual deaths” in a live financial model. That segues into his earlier Twitter takeover case, showing why students, armed with hard numbers, often side with Elon Musk’s mass‑layoff playbook while pundits and HR orthodoxy balk. Michael then checks in from Denver with a surreal Pearson Airport vignette: a calm traveler, a pistol magazine, and fifteen identical note‑taking officers. From there the pair launch a new recurring segment, *The Business of Nuclear*. Michael runs the tariff math: even a 50% U.S. Section 232 steel duty and Canada’s tightened quota move nuclear power costs by only pennies per MWh. Goran broadens it into a consumption‑vs‑income‑tax debate before previewing future company spotlights. Tune in for case‑room contrarianism and an inaugural market lens on nuclear’s growth.