Diligence for nuclear and small modular reactors.

The first LP-facing diligence standard for nuclear energy — beginning with a required risk-band classification the committee reads before anything else.

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In development and well advanced. Your House is told at the introduction when it is live.

The sector

Nuclear has returned to serious institutional consideration for the first time since Fukushima, carried by demand for round-the-clock zero-carbon power and federal loan guarantees that are creating the first bankable small modular reactor projects. About three-quarters of family offices are bullish on infrastructure, and nuclear is now in the conversation. No LP-facing diligence standard for the sector exists. Diligence OS wrote the first one.

The diligence gap

Nuclear cannot be underwritten with standard infrastructure tools. The NRC licensing process has no analog elsewhere. Cost overruns are not hypothetical — Vogtle Units 3 and 4 came in at 35 billion dollars against a 14 billion dollar estimate. Technology risk needs a nuclear-qualified engineer, not a standard independent engineer, and the decommissioning liability is a real cost to model. A generic process applies none of these tests.

What the fixture produces

A risk-band classification — operating-licence, pre-licence, or design and R&D stage — with the rationale, because the return profile differs by category and the committee must see it first.
An NRC regulatory assessment covering licence stage, open Requests for Additional Information, and the estimated timeline to approval.
A construction-cost assessment requiring an independent estimate from a nuclear-experienced firm, with base-case, 50 percent, and 100 percent overrun scenarios.
A technology assessment requiring a nuclear-qualified independent engineer — a standard infrastructure IE cannot read passive-safety design.

What the fixture includes

Document set

NRC licence application and status summary
Third-party technology assessment (nuclear-qualified)
DOE loan-guarantee term sheet (where applicable)
Construction cost estimate (third-party, nuclear-experienced)
Nuclear power purchase agreement (where applicable)
Site selection and early site permit
Used-fuel and waste-management plan
Financial model with delay and overrun scenarios
Developer and operator nuclear credentials

Risk flags

NRC conditional approval not received
No nuclear-qualified independent engineer
Developer without an NRC licence or a licensed-operator partnership
Construction cost estimate not independently reviewed
Financial model missing a 100 percent overrun scenario
No documented waste-management and decommissioning plan
DOE loan guarantee not applied for at pre-construction stage
Seismic characterisation incomplete
Post-PPA merchant assumptions undocumented (informational)

Releasability dimensions

NRC regulatory progress30%
Technology validation25%
Construction cost credibility20%
Developer nuclear credentials15%
Site control and offtake10%

Sample output

A twelve-section memorandum that opens with the required risk-band classification, then runs technology through recommendation, with a Releasability Score and a record of cross-document findings.

Without this fixture

Vogtle is the only large-scale comparable in the United States: 35 billion dollars against a 14 billion dollar estimate. An unreviewed developer cost estimate, accepted by a generic process, exposes the allocator to that magnitude of variance.

Who uses this

CIOs at single-family offices above 500 million dollars with 20-year horizons evaluating SMR commitments.
Investment teams at endowments with long-duration mandates considering a first nuclear allocation.
Sovereign wealth teams conducting initial diligence on US SMR development vehicles.

Every fixture clears the same floor the eight workflows did — measured against an authored data room before release, against the standard set out in what we measure.

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