Dear Reader,
Small modular reactors are coming, and they’re going to change the way we power our world in ways few can imagine.
It may be a tree-hugger’s nightmare, but chances are that a decade from now, this country and many other developed nations will be dotted by hundreds upon hundreds of new, miniaturized nuclear power plants.
The trend is just starting to kick off right now, but with backers like ChatGPT AI mogul Sam Altman and Silicon Valley legend Bill Gates investing billions of their own money, this sector appears unstoppable.
But why, you may ask, are tech-billionaires getting into the energy industry? Why are men who made their fame and fortune writing code suddenly so worried about our national power supply?
The answer is simple: Because in the coming years, the future of their industries will require more energy than ever before, and our outdated, crumbling power grid is having enough trouble as it is tackling the current demand.
Artificial Intelligence, perhaps the most salient trend to hit tech since the arrival of the internet, is predicted to become one of the world’s biggest consumers of electricity.
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Small Modular Reactors… Artificial Intelligence Won’t Happen Without It
Let me put things into perspective: According The International Energy Agency, a single old fashioned Google search consumes about .3 watt-hours of electricity.
A single ChatGPT inquiry, on the other hand, requires 2.9 watt-hours.
With ChatGPT style requests now expected to gradually supplant the antiquated basic Google search (Google itself is working towards integrating advanced AI functionality into their own products), the extra energy needed just to answer current demand is enough to power more than 1.5 million Western European homes.
And demand is growing, rapidly.
According to Wells Fargo, American-based AI power could top 700 TWh per year by the end of the decade — that’s close to 20% of total current US power demand.
That’s more than half the size of our entire residential energy market, and close to equal to our total industrial power demand.
Or to put it even more simply, AI, all by itself, will almost double our national industrial power requirements within the next 6 years, with even more growth expected in the following decade.
Billionaires Aren’t Building SMRs for Charity
So are you starting to see why the likes of Bill Gates and Sam Altman are getting into the energy business? It’s not out of the goodness of their hearts… It’s out of a very real, very urgent, and very personal need.
Both of these men have founded startups to pursue these ends, and both of these startups are focusing on next generation small and micro modular reactors.
Ranging from about ⅓ the size of a standard large scale nuclear reactor, or about 300 MWh, down to less than 20 MWh, the smallest of these micro reactors will be portable, stackable, and as the name suggests, totally modular in design.
They will not require massive 100 square mile exclusion zones, like the mega nuclear plants of the late 20th century, and they will not be a constant source of stress for people living in areas subject to earthquakes or other natural disasters.
Small and micro modular reactors will exist and function, much like large scale generators, only working full time to provide power for localized or even individual clients – such as military bases.
They will allow total circumvention of the power grid, which will allow for enhanced reliability while at the same time taking stress off existing resources.
And of course, all of this energy will come with zero carbon footprint, underscoring another painful truth for tree-huggers to swallow: if decarbonization is our goal, nuclear is the best and only viable option.
What’s Going To Power Tomorrow’s Small Modular Reactors?
There is one problem, however, and it’s a big one… But it comes with an equally great opportunity.
You see, all of these new reactors will require nuclear fuel, and nuclear fuel is something the U.S. has not been in the business of making, in decades.
In fact, last year, we produced less than 1% of the world’s reactor-grade uranium, despite the fact that the U.S. is the world’s biggest user of nuclear energy, with 30% of the global market.
Making matters worse, one of our biggest international suppliers — Russia, along with two other former Soviet states, accounted for nearly half of our imports as recently as two years ago.
But this balance of power is about to shift, because one Maryland-based company is leading the charge back into the domestic nuclear fuel business, something we largely gave up during the cold war.
This company is the first new refinement operation to open in the U.S. since the 1950s, and is the only company operating in the U.S. licensed to produce the type of highly-enriched uranium these reactors need.
One company… And I bet you’ve never heard of it.
Because up until now, it’s gone totally under the radar of the retail investor community.
But with Bill Gates breaking ground on his first reactor in Wyoming, and others to follow suit, it won’t stay that way.
I recently published a detailed report on the company, its future, and the future of the nuclear industry as a whole.
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