Episode 48: Thomas Jam Pedersen

Thomas Jam Pedersen is my latest Scaling Clean podcast guest. Thomas Jam Pedersen, the CEO of Danish startup Copenhagen Atomics, is developing compact molten salt reactors fueled by recycled nuclear waste and thorium for greater efficiency and scalability. What’s interesting about this tech is its potential to address long-term radioactive waste, reducing storage time requirements from 100,000 years to ~300 years. 

Here are the big three points: 

🔹 Energy drives prosperity: 

Every product we buy uses energy. 200 years ago, humans consumed significantly less energy. Today, it's about a hundred times more per person in the Western world. We are hungry for more energy because it's fundamental to prosperity. In the next decade, Thomas believes people globally will use 10x as much energy as today, which will strain global energy production. The only solution is generating a huge amount of energy. Countries like China and India are already realizing they need to produce everything: coal, oil, gas, wind, solar, and fusion. They want to build as much as they can, as fast as possible.

🔹 The challenge of starting in Europe: A decade of economic stagnation and resistance to new tech made Europe a tough launchpad.  In Europe, the focus is still on cutting energy consumption. However, I Thomas believes this position will change in the next five years.

🔹 Fundraising for the long haul: Unlike software startups, nuclear ventures have timelines more like pharmaceuticals, spanning decades. To address the gap, Copenhagen Atomics built a revenue model from day one by selling test systems, reactor salts and lithium-6 and -7. They have a demo reactor planned for 2027 with projected revenues of $50M by 2028.