Hyperion Power Generation today has no product or service.

It certainly doesn’t have a plant.

Yet, the Denver company is valued at an astonishing $100 million by investors, and its books boast a whopping 70 orders for what it plans to manufacture — small nuclear reactors.

Unlike large reactors in nuclear power plants that cost billions of dollars, Hyperion’s reactors will sport a relatively modest price tag of $25 million to $30 million apiece.

“We are four years away from putting the first reactor in the ground,” said Hyperion CEO John “Grizz” Deal, sporting the optimism of many chief executives.

But Deal’s forecast may be a bit sunny. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission says it could take years before it approves the design safety of mini-reactors.

“I can’t comment on Hyperion’s business projections, but the certification and approval of the (small reactor) design will take several years,” said NRC spokesman John McIntyre.

In reality, even a typical large reactor has not been built in the United States in more than three decades. And there is the perennial controversy about where companies can store spent fuel rods.

McIntyre said NRC’s staff of 3,600 is busy reviewing the applications for 26 proposed large reactors. The nation already has 104 that are operational.

Hyperion’s business plan calls for construction of up to eight manufacturing plants across the world. It is pursuing joint-venture talks in Eastern Europe, Asia and Australia.

In the U.S., New Mexico and Idaho are dangling tax breaks and other incentives to land a plant, Deal said.

Each plant could cost about $100 million.

If up and running, the plants, combined, could build 1,000 reactors per year, he said, capturing a slice of the estimated $70 billion global market.

“Small reactors are very attractive in developing countries such as Vietnam that don’t have infrastructure such as transmission lines to support big power plants,” said Felix Killar, senior director of fuel supply and material licensees at the Nuclear Energy Institute, which represents the industry.

Hyperion would ship the reactors from its plants to enrichment facilities to be fitted with uranium hydride fuel rods.

The reactors can’t blow up, melt down or be used to make weapons, Deal said.

The 6-foot-by-10-foot reactors could be carted on flat-bed trucks and buried several feet underground. Each reactor could generate enough heat to power 20,000 homes in the U.S. or purify water for scores of villages in West Africa.

“It certainly is an optimistic plan,” Killar said. “It can be completed, provided Hyperion can do a good job of laying out the technical basis of their nuclear reactors to the commission.

“The commission always assumes accidents could occur and wants to know how the company could minimize that eventuality and any adverse impact on the public.”

Dressed in a Hawaiian shirt and shorts, as is his custom when he’s not meeting investors or potential customers, Deal hardly looks the head of a company that plans to sell nuclear reactors.

“I was a left-wing nut bag, anti-nuke liberal until 10 years ago,” he said, stroking Nala, a wrinkly-faced Shar-Pei at his feet (the two dozen Hyperion employees at its Cherry Creek office can bring pets to work).

“Then I became educated about nuclear. I still am a liberal, but I don’t see how we can implement our climate-change policies and reduce carbon if we don’t use nuclear power for base-load plants.”

Base-load plants run 2 4/7, continuously generating electricity. Coal typically is used as fuel in these plants, but burning it emits carbon dioxide, the most common greenhouse gas.

Wind and solar plants are carbon-free, much like nuclear plants, but today they cannot run round-the-clock. Wind doesn’t always blow, nor does the sun always shine.

Deal credits his education to scientists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico who developed the mini-reactor technology. He moved to Hyperion from a job at the lab where he worked on technology transfer.

Hyperion’s largest shareholder — Denver venture capital fund Altira — licensed the technology from the lab three years ago and brought Deal onboard to put together the company.

“Hyperion’s reactors can be used in oil shale fields, at military bases and in remote communities, said Dirk McDermott, managing partner at Altira. “The company will grow quickly.”

For now, Hyperion is focused on raising money.

Deal returned to Denver last Thursday after visiting Houston, Albuquerque and two East European countries — all in seven days.

He says he’s applying for federal stimulus money “like everybody and their brothers up and down the Rio Grande” to translate the Hyperion vision into reality.

“The technology is not a challenge; the regulation is not a challenge,” he said. “For us, the only challenge is how fast can we move, how can we scale it to meet the large demand.”

Gargi Chakrabarty: 303-954-2976 or gchakrabarty@denverpost.com

Colorado finally makes a call

John Deal, the CEO of Hyperion Power Generation, says he has sat down twice with Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico to discuss the company.

Colorado’s neighbor is competing with Idaho to attract Hyperion’s first U.S. manufacturing plant for small nuclear reactors, Deal said.

But he has never met or talked to Gov. Bill Ritter, although the company has been headquartered in Denver for three years.

“We have tried to reach the governor’s office,” Deal said recently. “They won’t talk to us. They won’t return our phone calls.”

Todd Hartman, spokesman of the Governor’s Energy Office, said the administration has “no clear record of contacts from the company.”

“That said, we will be reaching out to them and would definitely be interested in talking to them,” he said.

Deal said Tuesday that he had received a call from Don Elliman, executive director of the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade, after The Denver Post made inquiries. Gargi Chakrabarty, The Denver Post