In September last year, when Trump negotiated tariffs with Japan, Japan’s end of the bargain required its government to invest $550 billion in the US. The deal is creating a huge pool of Japanese money for US businesses to submit offers to, and potentially receive huge capital injections through the Trump administration.
Politico recently profiled a company called Entra1 Energy that aims to install nuclear power. Entra1 is under consideration for $25 billion from the fund, but that doesn’t seem like a super reliable way for Japan to see returns on its investment.
According to Politico, Entra1:
- It was established about three years ago
- Based at Houston WeWork office
- has five or fewer employees
- never brought the nuclear project online
“Typically, we look at the names of the leaders, the evidence of what they have done. Typically, we look at what projects they have worked on, what is missing, and that is the genesis of the questions,” Citi investment analyst Vikram Bagri told Politico.
Entra1 provided a statement to Politico in defense of its record. It claimed that it had, over several years, “conducted due diligence and analysis on various nuclear technologies under research and development stages and recognized the need for a partner to support their commercialization stages.”
This “partner” line refers to a large company called NuScale that plans to collaborate with Entra1 on the project. Politico’s reporting here appears to stem largely from the concerns of approximately six unidentified NuScale investors who are concerned about the company’s involvement with NuScale.
Entra1’s CEO, Wadi Haboush, previously ran his father’s investment company. That father, named RW Habboosh, donated a million dollars to Trump in 2017, according to another 2019 investigation by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, and within a matter of weeks, Wadi Habboosh was granted access to Trump and other powerful figures.
According to the Entra1 website, the company is “NuScale’s exclusive global strategic partner commercializing NuScale SMR technology.” SMR stands for small modular reactor.
In most ways, nuclear power is a great alternative to fossil fuels once plants are built, but global nuclear power peaked in 2006. Most of the world has come a long way, especially China, which gets its low-carbon energy from renewables, although it occasionally embarrasses the US by doing things like bringing innovative nuclear reactors online that we can’t seem to pull off. China and its next-door neighbor Russia are the only countries with small modular reactors.
Needless to say, the US has no SMR. The last time a new nuclear reactor came online in the US was in 2023, but construction on that project began in 2009. Before this, the last time a nuclear reactor came online was in 2016 – a construction project that began in 1973. These are the only two new nuclear reactors in the US in the 21st century.
For whatever reason (mainly this guy named Michael Shellenberger) people in America have become convinced that nuclear energy is the modern energy solution for any sane person, and not renewable energy in the sky. Todd Abrazano, CEO of the US Nuclear Industry Council, claimed on the Hill a few weeks ago that private finance is falling in love with the possibilities of nuclear. “Gone are the days when governments alone financed and brokered new nuclear projects,” he wrote.
Maybe, but right now there is very little nuclear power on the grid supplying AI data centers – which are using technologies like gas turbines to meet unmet demand. And meanwhile the Trump administration is pouring money into businesses like Entra1, and pulling PR stunts on behalf of nuclear power, like moving a small nuclear reactor from one state to another as a proof of concept.
In another part of its statement to Politico, Entra1 said it “brings finance, project development and deal execution management expertise to our projects.” I hesitate to predict the future or speculate wildly, but do you believe that Entra1 will bring any nuclear reactors online through the power of “deal execution management expertise” in the year 2036? And in the same year, do you think Wadi Habbush will still be rich?
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