Seaborg and the EIC Accelerator: A Floating Reactor Pushed Back

Seaborg Technologies, renamed Saltfoss Energy in April 2025, designs a Compact Molten Salt Reactor: a small nuclear reactor in which the fuel is dissolved in molten salt. The Copenhagen company plans to install such reactors on barges built in South Korean shipyards and moor them off the coasts of countries that need power.

The European Innovation Council granted €2,500,000 towards SEAWEI, a €23.3 million project that ran from August 2022 to May 2025. Its CORDIS report lists a change of fuel, an approval in principle for the barge design and a consortium with Samsung Heavy Industries and Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power. In April 2025 World Nuclear News reported that the first reactor was now targeted for "the first half of the 2030s", instead of 2028. The company's accounts show losses rising every year and staff falling from 93 to 54.

Where Saltfoss Stands Today

The company's latest step is in Korea. In September 2026 World Nuclear News reported a KRW3 billion (about $2.3 million) contract with the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute for two years of fuel salt preparation, fuel fabrication and corrosion testing. Chief executive Klaus Nyengaard said: "Korea continues to be a cornerstone of our strategy." In April 2025, when it changed its name, the company had raised DKK 200 million from existing investors, and Nyengaard said: "With money in the bank, a strengthened organisation and a new board, we are excited to move to the next phase of our development." Founder Troels Schønfeldt left the board in February 2025. In May 2025 the Thai power company GPSC, which is studying a Saltfoss barge for Thailand, said construction of the first unit at Samsung Heavy Industries' Geoje shipyard was "expected to begin in 2029".

The Technology: Fuel in Molten Salt, Reactor on a Barge

In a molten salt reactor the nuclear fuel is mixed into a liquid salt that also carries heat away. The CORDIS objective describes a design that prevents meltdown or explosion and reduces waste by recycling fuel. In January 2023 the company switched its first reactors to low-enriched uranium, in the report's words to address "the global nuclear fuel market challenge"; the original design used high-assay low-enriched uranium, according to Wikipedia. The report puts the saving from a single 200 MW barge at "approximately 1.4 million tons of CO2 each year of operation", a projection for a plant that does not yet exist.

What the EIC Project Promised, and What CORDIS Shows

SEAWEI set out to develop the Compact Molten Salt Reactor. The final report's milestones are commercial and regulatory rather than technical: the fuel switch, the American Bureau of Shipping's approval in principle for the barge design obtained by Samsung Heavy Industries, the Korean consortium, a June 2023 memorandum with KEPCO Nuclear Fuel and GS E&C on fuel production, and "market validation in Southeast Asia". It reports no reactor test, no licence application result and no prototype.

1. Industrial partners for the bargeDeliveredSamsung Heavy and KHNP.
2. Design approval in principleDeliveredABS, for the barge.
3. Reactor technology demonstratedNot reportedNo test results on CORDIS.
4. First reactor by 2028MovedNow early 2030s.

What Has Happened Since the Award

The team grew to 93 in 2023, the middle of the EIC project, then fell to 68 in 2024 and 54 in 2025, according to the filed accounts. Gross profit, which had been DKK 48 million in 2022 and DKK 51 million in 2023, turned negative in 2025.

The Money

The accounts of Saltfoss Energy ApS show net losses of DKK 13.2 million in 2022, DKK 31.3 million in 2023, DKK 32.9 million in 2024 and DKK 43.4 million in 2025. Equity fell from DKK 130.5 million in 2021 to DKK 52.7 million in 2024 and rose to DKK 57.7 million in 2025, the year of the DKK 200 million raise. Earlier, the company had announced an "8-digit Euro sum" from private investors to hire 50 people and build a laboratory, and the Danish state's early stake, held through PreSeed Ventures, was sold at a profit to existing investors.

Why Europe Should Care

The EIC funded a European nuclear start-up whose industrial partners, shipyard and first market are in Asia. Its contribution was small, about a ninth of the project, and the project delivered agreements rather than hardware. A European reactor built in Korea for export is still some years away.

The Verdict

Saltfoss Energy has not been asked for comment for this article. It is based entirely on company statements, Danish company filings, trade press and EU project data, linked throughout.