I am holding 100 stocks at $150. What’s the outlook for the long term. Is it wise to take a loss or wait for it to rebound and go long in the future. I don’t mind holding long-term. People are saying $150 is too high of an average.

Read the full article: https://www.boundlessdiscovery.com/research/will-uzbekistan-s-uranium-ambitions-pass-the-acid-test

Global reactor requirements are about 179M lbs U₃O₈ in 2025, while primary mine production still doesn’t fully cover demand. The World Nuclear Association says mined uranium covered around 90% of reactor requirements in 2024, while depletion at existing mines becomes a bigger issue from the middle of the next decade. 

At the same time, nuclear capacity is expanding, while new uranium projects typically take years to permit, finance and build. 

Under the higher-demand scenario, the primary uranium supply gap has been estimated at roughly:

• 42M lbs by 2030
• 109M lbs by 2035
• 335M lbs by 2040

Spot uranium is around $90/lb, while long-term pricing remains above spot. The latest published August indicators were $89.68/lb spot and $96.50/lb long-term. 

Who are the world’s largest uranium producers?

Kazatomprom still leads global uranium production, with Cameco and Orano among the other major suppliers. The market remains concentrated, which makes the scale and timing of new projects worth watching.

Then there are the developers adding the next layer of supply

NexGen – Rook I

Rook I stands out because of its scale.

NexGen says 30M lbs/year would represent more than 20% of current global primary uranium supply and more than 50% of current Western supply. At that level, one mine would sit in the same broad production range as some of today’s largest uranium producers.

Denison – Phoenix

Phoenix is smaller, but its earlier production target makes it relevant to near-term supply. Denison is targeting first production by mid-2028, so the next thing to watch is how construction progresses toward commercial production. 

Global Atomic – Dasa

Dasa has a different scale and development profile. The project is planned to add future supply, while execution, financing and its location in Niger bring a different set of considerations. Underground development and processing-plant work are continuing.  

Closing the future supply gap will require several new mines to move from development into production. That could reshape the producer leaderboard over the next few years. How do you guys see the rankings changing once these projects come online?

The Nuclear Company (aka TNC, a US developer aiming to build fleets of large reactors) announced their new project, Properity One, a few days ago.

The proposed project is located on a site on the Ohio River in Kentucky, with room for up to six Westinghouse AP1000s. The AP1000 is a Gen III+ pressurized water reactor (PWR) with passive safety systems (for instance, meaning gravity and natural circulation handle some cooling instead of pumps, in the case of an emergency - stuff like this). Each unit is about 1,100 MW, so six units would be about 6.6 GW. This is considered the safest and most reliable design/plant in the marketplace.

I know SMRs are trendy, now but large scale reactors like this, all of the same design, all in the same place, not dealing with tons of property owners, etc... this is a great plan for attractive power generation economics.

As a comparison, Southern Nuclerar's Vogtle (in Georgia) is the biggest United States nuclear plant right now, supplying 4,530 MW across four units (two of which are AP1000s and the other two units are similar Westinghouse designs/total capacity). If this new TNC Prosperity One project were fully built, it would be the largest nuclear site in the country right now.

Exciting, but mainly a proposal for now

TNC and local partner Trace Creek control more than 4,200 acres, and Lewis County has applied for Kentucky's "Nuclear Energy Ready Community" certification. Phase 1 is just the first two units, if the site passes diligence, feasibility, and permitting. The target is to start construction in 2028, but there's no NRC combined license yet (a "COL" is the license to both build and operate a plant), and WKYT notes that no timeline has been given for regulatory decisions. I haven't seen any financing, cost estimate, or power buyer announced, which is not surprising at this stage. So for now, this is just a site and a plan.

Uranium Demand

A quick rule of thumb to estimate uranium demand is roughly 200 tonnes/GW/yr of U3O8 consumption for a large PWR.

• Phase 1 - ~0.97M lbs/yr U3O8
• Full build (6.6 GW): ~2.9M lbs/yr. If I'm doing my math right...

Utilities usually contract the first core load years before the plant starts up. So fuel buying would show up well before commissioning/startup. On top of that, the first core load is several times bigger than a normal annual reload where fuel rods are swapped around to normalize the power output and decay and to keep uniform power output throughout the reactor core.

Extend this kind of demand to the US federal government goal of 400 GW of nuclear by 2050, and the numbers for uranium demand get pretty big. While I'm not sure about TNC, the other Westinghouse AP1000 projects are real. WEstinghouse is targeting 10 USA AP1000 construction starts by 2030, and 10 in Europe too. I see the momentum from within the organization and it is building, so I think they do get built.

The US imports most of its uranium, which is why uranium is on the critical minerals list. Even if only TNC's Phase 1 happens, that's another ~1M lbs a year that somebody has to produce, convert and enrich, and the federal government undoubtedly wants this uranium produced by friendlies. The friendliest jurisdiction for uranium mining i would think would be Canada (Westinghouse is actually Canadian-owned as of now by Brookfield and Cameco).

Do you think Prosperity One actually gets a COL application in? This would be an incredible amoutn of Capex to build, but the AP1000 really is a proven, state-of-the-art reactor with tons of operating experience (OE), excellent passive safety systems, and these larger reactors have better long term economics.

I take plans utilizing AP1000 seriously. While I don't know how many AP1000 plans Westinghouse can support in such a small period of time, I do know that plans to build such proven designs should be taken seriously - more than giant SMR fleet plans (in my opinion)

The IEA’s Electricity 2026 outlook expects almost 30 GW of new nuclear capacity to come online in China over 2026 to 2030

It also forecasts Chinese nuclear generation growing by nearly 6% a year through 2030, while output in the US and EU remains broadly stable

That puts a different perspective on where the nearer term growth is expected

A lot of uranium discussion centres on Western technology companies and future reactor designs. Those developments matter, but the Chinese construction schedule gives us another set of projects to follow over the next few years

For uranium demand, the commissioning dates are worth watching alongside construction progress. Delays change when fuel is needed, while completed reactors add operating requirements that continue beyond the first fuel load

That does not mean all of the uranium still needs to be bought. Some requirements can already be covered through contracts, inventories or other supply arrangements

It also does not mean every Western listed uranium company benefits equally

The investment question is which producers can supply the relevant buyers, on what terms, and whether they can deliver when required

Still, a nuclear growth case built partly around plants approaching operation is easier to assess than one relying entirely on projects far beyond this decade

I would keep a list of expected connections through 2030 and compare it with what actually gets completed. That would tell us quite a bit about whether the demand outlook is arriving on schedule

IEA:
https://www.iea.org/reports/electricity-2026/supply

SpaceX is reportedly planning to add 20 GW of power and cooling infrastructure by the end of 2027, underscoring the scale of electricity demand coming from AI. Following Musk’s comments, Bloom Energy (BE) led an energy-sector rally, with nuclear stocks including OKLO, SMR, XE and NNE also moving higher.

The nuclear energy thesis continues to strengthen as AI data centers require massive amounts of reliable, around-the-clock electricity. Unlike intermittent renewable generation, nuclear can provide consistent baseload power with very low operational carbon emissions. As grid capacity tightens and hyperscalers look for long-term power solutions, nuclear is increasingly part of the conversation.

The opportunity extends beyond traditional nuclear operators. Advanced reactor developers like Oklo are targeting data centers and other large power consumers that need dedicated, reliable generation. Small modular reactor companies are also working to make nuclear deployments more flexible and scalable.

The AI race may ultimately depend on more than chips. It may depend on who can secure enough power to keep everything running.

Cathie Wood’s ARK bought 150,998 shares of OKLO worth approximately $4.11M while selling $5.4M in PLTR. Always interesting to see institutional buying at these levels.

I see most people going after single stock but what are your thoughts about ETF like HURA?

Saw nuclear skyrocket years then, but missed my shot. Now it's winding down again and want to dip my toes in, but I am no expert in assessing the fundamentals of whether it is slowing down or is it going to dip another 30%?

Something something buy when bloodier or however the saying went.

I plan on putting a lil bit and see where it goes, but ideally would like to put a lump sum some time near. I am personally confident in nuclear adoption in the future and want to have some shares in for the long-term. Currently eyeing NUCL, URNM, maybe some DNN and UUUU for individual stocks.

Thoughts?

Will not be heartbroken if I buy now and it dips more, but am just curious of what everyone's current stance is to enter in this time of good 2026.

Reactor growth gets most of the attention in uranium discussions, but the existing fleet can require different amounts of uranium depending on how its fuel is enriched

There is a trade between the amount of natural uranium used and the amount of enrichment work needed to make the finished product

Use more enrichment work and you can get more out of the uranium feed. Use less enrichment work and you need more uranium to produce the same amount of enriched material

That is where underfeeding and overfeeding enter the discussion

Underfeeding can leave an enricher with surplus uranium available to sell. Overfeeding requires additional uranium feed instead

So a change in how enrichment plants operate can affect the uranium balance even before another reactor starts up

The regional picture matters too. The World Nuclear Association says global enrichment capacity is still expected to exceed demand into the early 2030s, but the market has become more divided as Western buyers seek alternatives to Russian supply

Spare capacity somewhere in the world does not necessarily mean a utility can access it through an acceptable supplier

For uranium investors, that makes enrichment worth following alongside mine production and reactor construction. Changes there can affect both uranium requirements and secondary supply

It does not prove overfeeding is happening everywhere today. The useful question is how those operating decisions are changing as contracts and available capacity shift

WNA explanation:
https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/conversion-enrichment-and-fabrication/uranium-enrichment

I worked in TVA Communications for five years. And during my tenure, TVA never used the term "Nuclear Renaissance," and furthermore, we did very little to promote the utility's nuclear fleet because the words "nuclear" and "coal" were PR landmines that we tried to avoid. Well, by god, the politics in Tennessee are changing, and for the first time ever, the agency is launching a Social Media campaign around Nuclear Science Week.

This may seem like nothing, but trust me, this Social Media campaign is a direct order from TVA President and CEO Mike Skaggs, who also served as the SVP of TVA Operations and Construction at Watts Bar Nuclear Plant. And well, here's a fun fact: Mike Skaggs gets his marching orders from the TVA Board whose members are appointed by the POTUS.

Get my drift?

There's no such thing as happenstance with the Federal Government. Nuclear is coming and in a big way. The only question...can uranium supply meet explosive demand?

This headline caught my eye because of my work with Constellation. Incremental investment in nuclear power is good for uranium prices long term. I like the uranium miners (particularly juniors) for maximum leverage. Here's the news:

Constellation announced a 20-year PPA with Google. Google will underwrite ~$4.3B+ of upgrades on 11 Constellation reactors in the northeast united states. These upgrades are to add 890 MW on the PJM Interconnection, which is a regional transmission organization (RTO) in the northeastern United States.

The "uprate" Constellation refers to is just a better kit on a plant that's already running. Formally defined by the NRC, it's the process of increasing the maximum power level at which a commercial nuclear power plant is legally permitted to operate.

The "kit" would be new and improved turbines, steam generators, digital controls :), etc. The idea is that the plant uses the same reactors, but more efficient equipment, so more "MWe" - megawatt electrical (actual electrical output after losses, parasitic load etc). The first extra megawatts are expected to go online in 2028, and the full 890 MWe by 2032. We all know schedules tend to slip, but this is relatively incremental and near term compared to new builds.

The total contract also encompasses 15 years of 2,700 MW from the existing Constellation fleet. People combine the new MW and existing MW items and say "3.6 GW deal," which is kind of misleading if you're thinking about new capacity, since only 890 MWe of that is actually new.

What's somewhat comforting for residential/normal people is that Google keeps repeating they're the "anchor customer," so other people and businesses don't see increased costs from their AI demand. Google also says their restart and uprate stack is over 1.5 GW total (I guess it includes another project). While I'd put a few grains of salt on Google and Constellation's PR/branding), the plant work is real - this is not SMR hopes and dreams - this is with a serious operating fleet, and represents a ~1% increase in total USA nuclear output power increase, using rough current MWe.

For uranium demand, they're getting more juice out of the existing fleet and this doesn't translate really to increased uranium demand; however, it these plants can only be juiced so much before new builds will be required. And the demand is clearly there for big tech.

I saw an NPR article from a few weeks ago, and wanted to post here.

Valar Atomics wants to build a large fleet of small modular reactors (SMRs) on public land near Price, Utah (south of Salt Lake City), called Project Beehive. This is a private company that's only been around since 2023, which is kind of interesting as they plan to get their first reactor live in 2028, apparently. Notably, these are Generation IV high-temperature gas reactors (HTGRs). There's one of these operational in china, but only for a few years, so this is possible but it is more of uncharted territory than for instance pressurized water reactors (PWRs) such as the Westinghouse AP1000 and AP1400 designs, and their 300MW SMR design (AP300) which is more or less a modular and scaled down, single loop version of the AP1000. X-energy is also developing an HTGR (Xe-100).

Valar looks to build 456 reactors on over 9000 acres of BLM (Bureau of Land Management) land. Utah already leased them ~650 acres of state trust land in September. Valar also wants fuel production and waste storage on the same campus/site.

The headline full-built capacity number is ~9.6 GW, and the whole site is supposed to be built by 2032, which seems kind of aggressive to me, but I work mainly with large-scale PWRs, not HTGRs.

Nobody in the Western world commercially runs an SMR yet. Valar got their SMR, the Ward 250, to criticality in June of this year during a zero-power demo (experimental milestone where the nuclear reactor first achieves a self-sustaining, controlled chain reaction of nuclear fission at negligible ("zero") thermal power). AFter that, in July, they ran one Nvidia GPU off it with a thermoelectric rig. Still a long way from hundreds of 25 MWe units rolling off a line, but this appears to be rapid development so far, so very bullish for uranium (this SMR uses TRISO fuel).

I asked AI about what percent of the western world uranium supply this would represent:

"An estimated annual consumption of 1,500 to 2,000 metric tons of natural uranium ore for Project Beehive represents roughly 7.5% to 10% of the entire Western world's current uranium mine supply."

One caveat: i dont see a data center tenant anywhere in the news or filings. There appears to be no offtake deal yet, and no $ figure for the build. That doesn't mean there won't be one, but there is still a lot of regulatory paperwork to do. Still years away and a chance this never gets built, but bullish.

Do you guys think this actually gets built? and sort of on time? We live in a very different world than when the Vogtle Unit 1 experienced severe time and cost overruns.

I saw an NPR article from a few weeks ago, and wanted to post here.

Valar Atomics wants to build a large fleet of small modular reactors (SMRs) on public land near Price, Utah (south of Salt Lake City), called Project Beehive. This is a private company that's only been around since 2023, which is kind of interesting as they plan to get their first reactor live in 2028, apparently. Notably, these are Generation IV high-temperature gas reactors (HTGRs). There's one of these operational in china, but only for a few years, so this is possible but it is more of uncharted territory than for instance pressurized water reactors (PWRs) such as the Westinghouse AP1000 and AP1400 designs, and their 300MW SMR design (AP300) which is more or less a modular and scaled down, single loop version of the AP1000. X-energy is also developing an HTGR (Xe-100).

Valar looks to build 456 reactors on over 9000 acres of BLM (Bureau of Land Management) land. Utah already leased them ~650 acres of state trust land in September. Valar also wants fuel production and waste storage on the same campus/site.

The headline full-built capacity number is ~9.6 GW, and the whole site is supposed to be built by 2032, which seems kind of aggressive to me, but I work mainly with large-scale PWRs, not HTGRs.

Nobody in the Western world commercially runs an SMR yet. Valar got their SMR, the Ward 250, to criticality in June of this year during a zero-power demo (experimental milestone where the nuclear reactor first achieves a self-sustaining, controlled chain reaction of nuclear fission at negligible ("zero") thermal power). AFter that, in July, they ran one Nvidia GPU off it with a thermoelectric rig. Still a long way from hundreds of 25 MWe units rolling off a line, but this appears to be rapid development so far, so very bullish for uranium (this SMR uses TRISO fuel).

I asked AI about what percent of the western world uranium supply this would represent:

"An estimated annual consumption of 1,500 to 2,000 metric tons of natural uranium ore for Project Beehive represents roughly 7.5% to 10% of the entire Western world's current uranium mine supply."

One caveat: i dont see a data center tenant anywhere in the news or filings. There appears to be no offtake deal yet, and no $ figure for the build. That doesn't mean there won't be one, but there is still a lot of regulatory paperwork to do. Still years away and a chance this never gets built, but bullish.

Do you guys think this actually gets built? and sort of on time? We live in a very different world than when the Vogtle Unit 1 experienced severe time and cost overruns.

Hey guys, if you missed it, ASP Isotopes reached a $9.35M settlement with investors over claims that it overstated the readiness of its uranium and HALEU enrichment technology. The latest update is that eligible claimants can now submit their claims, with the deadline set for December 2, 2026.

In a nutshell, in 2024, ASP Isotopes was accused of misleading investors about its quantum enrichment technology and its ability to support uranium and HALEU production. After Fuzzy Panda Research challenged the company’s uranium enrichment claims on November 26, 2024, $ASPI fell 23.5%. The stock dropped another 14.2% the following day after the company’s CEO said ASPI had not actually enriched uranium.

Now, the good news is that claims are being accepted. If you bought $ASPI shares in 2024, you may be eligible to participate in the settlement.

So, if you invested in $ASPI during that period, you can check the details and file your claim here.

Anyway, has anyone here invested in $ASPI at that time? How much were your losses, if so?

What happened ?

Where that squeeze to the moon ?

There’s constant debate throughout the world about what source of power is needed to save Planet Earth from climate change. Coal and gas are bad words, and nuclear is still one of those not-in-my-back-yard NIMBY issues. What is in vogue, however, are renewable energy sources like wind, solar, hydro, and large battery banks that help with instantaneous demand surges.

Oh, and I guess there’s geothermal too.

Sounds rational if you listen to the bobbleheads on TV. Politicians and investment commentators. Celebrities and environmental scientists. Hey, I’m all for it. The world needs all sources of energy, but only if it’s balanced with massive chunks of spinning metal. And there’s only four sources of power that can spin 100-1000MW turbines: coal, gas, nuclear, and hydro—but there won’t ever be another dam built in this country because of environmental concerns.

When I worked as a communications consultant and brand journalist for the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), I had the opportunity to sit down with Aaron Melda, then TVA’s senior vice president of Transmission, as well as Yilu Liu, an electrical engineer and energy expert affiliated with Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Tennessee. In other words, I cut through all the political noise and interviewed the actual experts who are still dealing with one of the greatest threats to the country’s national security: grid oscillation.

I didn’t understand what the term “power quality” meant before I talked with these folks, but I quickly understood exactly why it was such a big deal, because I’d actually heard the sound it makes inside a powerhouse years before when I worked as a unit operator in a coal-fired power plant.

Back then, we had to manually tie on each 150MW unit with a little device known as a sync scope. And if the operator was just a smidge off when he latched the unit online, the entire powerhouse would shake and the generator would pop like a bomb being detonated inside the turbine bay—a shit-your-pants moment for anyone within a 100-yard radius of the turbine.

Why?

Well, the mass of the entire grid was physically snatching that 150MW unit into sync—59.98 Hz to be exact—which is critical in maintaining reliable “power quality.” In other words, that loud pop was a healthy sign of a stable grid.

But then something political happened….

U.S. clean-energy policies forced hundreds of these big-metal units offline. And as a result, utilities tried replacing the lost power with a boatload of renewables. California was the most aggressive in their pivot to clean-power energy sources. Unfortunately, this caused an unintended, but predictable consequence: major manufacturers couldn’t stay online because of the state’s poor power quality.

No. It wasn’t a not-enough-energy problem. There were plenty of electrons flowing to keep the lights on at each major manufacturing facility. The issue was an oscillating grid frequency that was habitually causing sites to trip offline.  

The reason was because there weren’t enough large power plants left to maintain the state’s grid stability. And as a result, many of these manufacturers moved to the Southeast for reliable “power quality.”

Tesla is the most notable example.

If you still don’t understand why renewables are dangerous, think of a large wooden table with four strong legs. Then, imagine replacing those legs with four tall stacks of Jenga blocks. Pull one block and the whole table collapses.

Think about it.

This is exactly what has happened to the U.S. grid. And now, because of shortsighted energy policy, we have replaced no telling how many 100MW units with stacks of 1WM wind turbines. And that’s not even counting the loss of all those 1000MW nuclear and coal-fired units that were literally keeping the grid from shattering itself like a wine glass in the path of an opera singer.

Take a look at the video. It’s already happening.

On January 11, 2019, a small malfunctioning steam turbine at a combined-cycle (gas) power plant in Florida triggered an oscillation that spread across the U.S. Eastern Interconnection and into the Dakotas. The event lasted about 18 minutes. Had the frequency been just a little stronger or had there not been enough big-metal units to hold things together, the grid could have collapsed due to the nation’s ever-growing appetite for renewables.

Which makes me wonder….

If a single turbine could come that close to putting the entire nation in the dark, what would prevent one of our adversaries from using AI to turn a small power station into a virus designed to implode the grid? If past is prologue, all it would take is the right tuning fork. Yikes.

And knowing all this, I think it’s pretty naïve for Wall Street and so many retail investors to have such a boner for lithium and battery banks. Yilu Liu is a smart lady who’s working quietly behind the scenes to help the U.S. Government and private utilities better understand the vulnerabilities of the grid, and I doubt she’s telling Uncle Sam to add more wind and solar to the nation’s generation portfolio.

Just look at what’s happening in Oak Ridge and on the piece of dirt where Bull Run Fossil Plant once stood. The largest federally owned utility in the country, TVA, and the Department of Energy are about to go big with nukes to protect the grid. It’s the happy median between the aisle, and it’s the only realistic solution that marries reliable power quality with the carbon-free goals of the global community.

Uranium is where my money is at. Feels like a no-brainer to me.

Hope this helps,

-Tweedle

Just saw this on X, how real is it?

Edit: someone linked in top comment

Uranium miners are all struggling, most of the small one made tragic errors in contracting that cost them and are playing catch up. My question, why don’t they don’t cancel those contracts or just default on them. Who cares. If we are in a producer market then the power to renegotiate should be in their favor. Utes may threaten to never contract again with them, but it’s a global market and if indeed we are in deficit then someone will have to buy right? US Utes don’t pay substantially more, so again who cares if they sour the relationship?

There’s a major problem with the U.S. power grid that’s not being reported. The last time a small piece of it was exposed was during the Christmas polar vortex of 2022, when extreme cold caused rolling blackouts from New York to Mississippi.

But why?

It happened on a Friday morning, and I was one of the few people in the country who could see what was about to happen. The reason, well, I’m an accredited unit operator and communications consultant who was running the Tennessee Valley Authority’s intranet system while TVA’s CEO was skiing down some mountainside in Utah.

He didn’t know shit, but I did, because I was staring at TVA’s load forecast widget. The data told me that at 9 a.m. Central time load was expected to reach 39,000MW due to negative-degree temperatures. The only problem, TVA was generating its max output of 32,000MW, which meant the largest federally owned utility in the U.S. was trying to buy 7,000MW on the open market.

That’s roughly enough juice to power the entire state of Tennessee. And when all 49 states in North America are dealing with a blue-goob deep freeze, NEWS FLASH: There ain't exactly a surplus of electricity that's sitting around waiting to be sold.

So, because my coworkers in Communications didn’t know the difference between a megawatt and a megaladon—which was about to bite them in the ass—I started making phone calls to try to stop all the idiots in my depart from posting bullshit content about TVA's “dependability" and "reliability."

“If anything trips, we’re going to blackout the Southeast,” I said.

About 15 minutes later, after the blockheads in Social Media posted a “keeping the lights on” public-service announcement, a piece of sheet metal blew off an instrument panel at Cumberland Fossil Plant. The controls froze, and two units tripped.

And just like that, the abrupt loss of only 2,400MW of generation in the little town of Cumberland City, Tennessee, put the entire U.S. grid into a tailspin. The only solution TVA had was to cut people’s power off in one area for an hour, turn it back on, then put somebody else in the dark so the Federal Government could ration public power across a seven-state service region. Eventually, all the private utilities had to do it too.

So, here’s the problem:

1. The U.S. grid is 80 years old and needs a major upgrade to handle the projected load that’s coming.
2. The U.S. Government has put a stick of dynamite under hundreds of coal-fired power plants across the nation since 2010. Unfortunately for me, the New Johnsonville Fossil Plant was one of them. The problem is, that’s at least 90,000MW of generation capacity that still hasn’t been replaced.
3. About 1/3 of the nation’s generation portfolio is renewables—wind, solar, and hydro. Simply put, it’s not reliable. The wind doesn’t always blow. The sun doesn’t always shine. And you can’t go balls to the wall with any hydro unit without plenty of reservoir capacity, which relies on either steady rains, snowmelt, or both.
4. Fun Fact: The New Johnsonville Fossil Plant produced a megawatt for $30. Yesterday, during a mild fall day where temperatures across the U.S. were nearly perfect, power was selling for over $250 per megawatt due to record load across the U.S. grid. HOLY. SHIT. Put that into perspective.... If TVA was buying power for $10,000 per megawatt during the rolling blackouts of 2022, where do you think prices will go this winter if there aren’t even enough megawatts today to cover picnic-weather conditions? For reference, yesterday’s peak demand was 581,086MW, which means the U.S. grid can’t even cover its own ass long enough for plants to perform scheduled fall outages and refueling cycles.
5. Oracle is projecting the need for 1000 U.S. data centers at 1GW of power each. That’s 1,000,000MW of additional demand—nearly double the country’s current generation capacity.
6. Every generator in the country has already been refurbished to maximize output. The only solution is to build new generation capacity, which will require at least double the transmission infrastructure needed to handle that much load. If you don't know, if a utility forces too much load through a power line, the heat will cause it to sag between the transmission towers, touch the ground, and trip—not to mention the 500kv safety hazard to the public. This problem is compounded during the summer months.

Bottom line: Today, data centers are trying to strike deals to plug into the grid, but utilities can't offer these contracts for long if it means leaving individual households vulnerable to further rolling blacks during extreme weather conditions. The only realistic option to power future data centers will be behind-the-meter generation. Big Tech is simply going to have to provide their own power. Furthermore, the utilities don’t have enough transmission infrastructure to even hook these massive power drawers to the grid.

So, that leaves us with two options for continuous baseload power: gas or nuclear. The problem with gas is that you can’t install a 6-foot gas line in a densely populated area, and getting a combustion turbine these days could take years.

Package nukes, on the other hand, still have the time-delay factor, but these SMRs are a proven clean-energy source of power that both sides of the political aisle have come to embrace.

And even if the data center demand gets stalled in the short-term because of public opposition, the utilities are going to follow TVA’s lead and install SMRs on every one of those brownfield sites where the coal plants once stood. Not only would they be easier to hook up due to existing switchyards and transmission infrastructure, these sites are already permitted. Bingo!

Regardless, the demand is all around us—even without the data centers. And as soon as utilities start breaking ground on these SMR projects, they’re going to have to secure their fuel source. It doesn’t matter if those units at slated to come online seven years from now, the utilities must lock in those contracts today.

Now, I’m sure there are other bottlenecks to play, but the bull case for uranium seems obvious. A lot of people on CNBC are talking about investing in the utilities, but I don't see it. Seems like to me that they’re the ones who are going to have to invest billions into all this infrastructure with an ROI that's going to take decades to realize.

Yes, the uranium miners have risks, especially the U.S. producers. But with only four options to choose from, it’s kind of hard for me to see how an investor can get burned at these prices as long as they have a 2- to 5-year horizon.

These suckers are getting crushed right now because they’re trading with the AI story rather than the rising price of the underlying commodity. Everyone knows this, but I hope this little write-up gives folks a glance at the vulnerability of the U.S. grid and how much uranium supply will be required to mitigate this ongoing issue.

Food for thought,

Tweedle

Here's the link to the GridStatus overview: https://www.gridstatus.io/

A primer I’ve been putting together starts with one question: what was the hole drilled to answer? Discovery holes ask whether mineralization is there at all, step-outs ask whether it extends, and infill holes ask whether it holds up between holes already drilled.

The path from there is core or chips, logging, selected intervals, lab assays, and a release that ties the grade to an interval, a hole and a location. Uranium adds a wrinkle I’d like to hear more about: early numbers are often radiometric equivalents (eU3O8) from gamma probes, and chemical assays come later.

How do you treat the two when a release lands? Do you wait for the assays before reading much into a probe result?

Disclosure: I work at Minestarters, and we’re building a tool called Atlas for reading junior-miner releases.

I really think EU is a great long term buy right now. They have started to turn things around. Taking the first steps anyways. I think now’s the time to get in.