CEO of Portland Holdings Inc and director, chairman, and CEO of Mandeville Private Client, Michael Lee-Chin has stepped up his push for small modular reactors (SMRs) to form a larger part of the energy grid across the world and precision oncology, inviting investors to “come and co-invest with us” in the technologies.

Lee-Chin, who last month told the Jamaica Observer that he has partnered with the Canadian Nuclear Laboratory (CNL) to promote nuclear technology as the means to decarbonise electricity production across the world, was on Canada’s Wealth Professional TV with managing editor of Wealth Professional Canada, James Burton late last week, continuing his marketing blitz of the technologies to provide education and aiming to attract investors.

Reiterating that countries can only achieve their commitment to decarbonise their electricity grid by using nuclear energy in their power mix, because of its reliability and consistency, and now increased safety with SMR power plants, Lee-Chin called on investors to take another look at the technology.

SMRs are nuclear power plants which produce 300MW or less of electricity and are built in a factory and transported and installed on-site. They are “modular” in the sense that each unit can be assembled next to another and scaled up or down to meet the local electricity needs.

“It’s important to the world, because every country has signed up to be net zero within whatever time frame — 15 years, 20 years, 30 years — but most countries have no idea as to how to get there. Because to get to net zero you will have to have some nuclear baseload to provide fuel, energy for industries, for aviation, for shipping, etc; and very few countries have that expertise.”

He said CNL, with a team of 600 nuclear scientists and 1,600 engineers, has that expertise “for all things IP [intellectual property] in the nuclear space”.

Outlining to investors and prospects of Mandeville Private Client what the collaboration with CNL means for them, Lee-Chin told Burton: “It is fantastic. At this point in time, clients, whether you are CPP (Canadian Pension Plan), [Baby] boomers, whether you are an institution or a retail client, you don’t have access to these types of investments. With this cooperation with CNL there will be funds needed to implement and to operationalise projects, so clients will have a wonderful opportunity to come and co-invest with us in these projects.”

He said the opportunity to invest in SMR will see clients “participating in solving some of mankind’s most unmet needs”.

“CNL is very excited about this opportunity… They now see an opportunity to take what they have, what is local and native to us here in Canada, and help the world solve its problems,” he continued before adding that he is humbled by the opportunity.

“CNL staff, they are also humbled and motivated and salivating to get going, because it is necessary, and we have the tools to do it, and now we have the opportunity to realise it with this partnership.”

He pointed out that most developed countries, which were actively decommissioning nuclear power plants in the aftermath of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear crisis in Japan, are now rethinking that strategy, especially after Russia started reducing gas supplies to Europe as retaliation for sanctions and aid given to Ukraine as part of efforts to end the war in the eastern European country.

The message to investors was not restricted to the pushing of the SMR nuclear technology, but also for the push to further develop and apply precision oncology in cancer treatment. Currently, cancer treatment technology involves destruction of a large number of cells, those infected and those which are not infected, to get to the disease, which often times leave the patients sick. With precision oncology the treatment can be targeted to the specific cell, leaving the healthy cells untouched, which works out better for patients in terms of healing. He has invested 225 million euros in a German firm which develops the technology.

To help his investors understand the technologies — SMR nuclear power and precision oncology — and to provide advice to the team at Mandeville Private Client, Lee-Chin has even hired a chief medical officer and a chief scientific officer, a novel move which is unusual for investment firms.

He explained why he decided to bring such expertise on board.

“As an investor, we have to understand what it is that we invest in. So it doesn’t make sense us getting into areas that we don’t have deep understanding of the scientific and the medical, because we are not speculating here; we have to understand it. So we have populated our team with individuals with scientific and medical expertise at the highest level.”

Asked to look into his crystal ball to see if he could see the future for nuclear technology and precision oncology, Lee replied: “It’s not perfectly clear, and nothing is ever perfectly clear.”

But he outlined that he operates off three p’s — predicting, planning and persevering.

“Success is created by predicting the future (the first p). The second p is planning for it, and third p is persevering with your plan. It’s no different from what Wayne Gretzy (a Canadian former ice hockey player and coach) said when people said, ‘Wayne, how are you so great.’ He said, most hockey players, focus on where the puck is…I focus on where the puck is going.”