A former chief scientist for one of the world's biggest consumer-goods companies says he can make nuclear power cheaper and safer and wants $30 million so that he can prove it.

After working 25 years at Unilever PLC, Ian Scott came out of retirement in 2013 to found Moltex Energy LLP. Three years later, the biochemist says he has come up with an atomic-reactor design that produces more power for less money than standard pressured-water unit like the ones planned at Hinkley Point in Somerset, England.

"The Stable Salt Reactor is a U.K.-developed technology that can produce electricity at a third of the Hinkley-C strike price," Scott said in an interview in London. "It can store energy at grid scale — catalyzing the further rollout of renewables — and can be powered by the country's existing nuclear waste."