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Thom Mason

Feb 12, 2026

8:00
Can you tell us about Los Alamos and its history and the role that it has played and continues to play in our nuclear enterprise?
8:09
Well, the way I like to talk about this is we have entered what I call the fourth age for Los Alamos.
8:15
And I mean fourth age in the sort of J.R.R. Tolkien, Lord of the Rings sense.
8:19
You know, the Lord of the Rings, the end of the Lord of the Rings, when the ring gets thrown into Mount Doom, represents the end of the third age of Middle Earth.
8:31
And we don't quite find out what the fourth age is because Tolkien never wrote that book.
8:37
And I think in a similar way, we've made a transition in the sort of geopolitical environment to a new age.
8:44
We don't fully understand it yet.

15 MINS LATER

23:29
But talk to us then about the nuclear enterprise more broadly, and how is it that civilian nuclear energy and our infrastructure to support that support the national security mission and vice versa?

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