Nano or just nothing: Will nano go nuclear?
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Nano Nuclear Energy is in the business of designing very small nuclear power generators. Though they don’t yet have any operating generators, their intention is to make them small enough to carry around on or tow behind a large truck, or even have them power ships while loaded on the ship’s deck. Technically, reactors of this size might be better described as "microreactors" rather than "nanoreactors". You can see an animation of their vision on YouTube.
According to Hunterbrook Media, a newspaper associated with a short seller named Hunterbrook Capital, NNE has "no revenue, products, or patents for its core technology". But it does have a plan to produce its small nuclear generators starting in 2030-2031, a timeline that an expert asked by Hunterbrook Media called "frankly laughable". Hunterbrook also raises questions about management quality, slow applications for regulatory approvals, and the need to raise "hundreds of millions of dollars for research and development" before the product can go to market.
Similar facts and questions were raised by a story in May from Fast Company without raising the possibility that NNE could become the target of short sellers. NNE stock was listed on NASDAQ with a market capitalization of about $600 million before the Hunterbrook report. This year its auditor has been fined $2 million by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) for failure to maintain auditing quality control standards. NNE, to say the least, is an unusual company.