My apologies, I don’t have much time today so this is woefully lacking in detail.
Nuclear power is getting a lot of airtime right now with plenty of assertions that we “need” nuclear power because AI and green goals.
Personally, I DO NOT buy the thesis that there will be a nuclear power renaissance in America any time soon, no matter how much we “need” nuclear power, because NIMBY activism. Lots of assertions that we “need” nuclear power but precious few assertions from individuals stating there “needs” to be a power plant in THEIR back yard. Secondarily, dealing with the waste is still an unresolved problem imo despite protestations that it isn’t a big deal, that we can recycle it etc. I can refute it all, but don’t have the time to type it all out at the moment.
My thesis here is that IF it is true that a nuclear power renaissance WILL happen in America, then $LEU is a no-brainer.
Here is why:
- Right now we get almost all of our enriched uranium from Russia, because in the spirit of nuclear de-escalation, in America we have almost completely stopped enriching uranium
- The situation of having to buy enriched uranium from Russia may be (barely, for some, I’m sure) tolerable given the small amount of enriched uranium we need. However if we are to scale out nuclear power in America I think it’s obvious we cannot rely on Russia as basically the sole provider of our enriched uranium.
- Currently the ONLY entity licensed to import enriched uranium from Russia is $LEU. So, basically a monopoly, aside from some small-scale producers on U.S. soil
- Currently the only entity with the approvals and expertise to scale out uranium enrichment sufficient to a nuclear power renaissance in America is $LEU
Again, my apologies for the lack of detail here.
Also my apologies that currently this is more of a story-stock; at the moment $LEU doesn’t have the growth numbers we usually look for here, though they do generate revenue and their profitability numbers are pretty good.
I highly recommend this article on Seeking Alpha:
https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/LEU
I have taken a starter position despite even though I don’t think a nuclear power renaissance in America is inevitable. It’s a solid business, so the downside seems limited, and the current hype around nuclear power probably reduces risk in the short term imo.
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I do not buy a renaissance in nuclear anytime soon in the US. The political momentum is just too great. But there are some nuclear funds in the Inflation Reduction Act and I am hoping for some progress. I do believe that the Small Modular Reactor (SMR) technology is ready prime time. The SMR systems are no longer based upon water cooling, but rather convection based sodium or other metals that are very safe from a meltdown. I also do not worry about the storage issue, Somebody can certainly figure out how to safely store the nuclear waste from my lifetime, about the size of my fingernail.
I am very in favor of modern nuclear power. If there is anything that can drive this are the huge energy demands of the data centers with High Performance Computing and AI. This power constraint with a nearby high bandwidth network is already a throttle to HPC. I recently purchased a small CORZ position as this is an old fashion data center with bitcoin services that has excess power capacity. HPC demands a higher price than bitcoin, They are trying to sell this extra capacity to an AI customer. Note I am not recommending this stock. I am just trying to learn to see if their is an investment opportunity in this segment. Gosh give me a break.
-zane
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zane,
…have you any thoughts on $SMR? I am up bigly on my beer-money position.
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I know nothing about SMR, but you said waste disposal of about a fingernail’s worth of material is all that is required. If that’s the case, I just don’t see any promise in uranium related stock.
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China is currently building 25 nuclear reactors. They have 55 active nuclear reactors.
The US has 93 active nuclear reactors at 54 power plants. We just started up 2 new nuclear reactors in 2023 and 2024 - they were the first new reactors built in the US in decades.
The US has been using the equivalent of Small Modular Reactors in navy vessels since 1955. Today, all submarines and aircraft carries are powered by nuclear. There have been almost zero issues with these reactors. Crew members are working and sleeping within yards of these reactors for months at a time.
I am open to hearing counter arguments, but based on what I have heard from industry experts, nuclear “waste” (spent nuclear fuel) can be safely stored, and it can be recycled and re-used.
I have heard many podcasts about SMRs that are being developed and tested, and they sound promising. But, I have also been hearing more about solar power combined with batter storage being a strong competitor. I am guessing there will continue to be a combination of both. And all of it will be combined with Bitcoin miners to utilize every last watt of excess power and provide load balancing to the grid.
I would like to be invested in nuclear in some way, but so far I have not come across a compelling enough investment. I am invested in solar/batteries through Tesla.
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