An hour west of Houston, where suburban sprawl surrenders to cow pasture, sits a cavernous industrial workshop in which welders and pipefitters assemble equipment bound for oil refineries and drilling platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. “These guys have been working for decades to modularize components for high pressures and temperatures,” says Bret Kugelmass, 36, the founder and CEO of Washington, D.C.- based Last Energy. That's why he came here, to VGas LLC, when he wanted a prototype of the small, modular nuclear fission reactors he's betting could play a big role in cutting down on fossil fuels.
Based on Kugelmass’ open-sourced design and using mostly off-the-shelf components, VGas fabricated almost all the parts