Last week, the Nuclear Regulatory Council (NRC) voted unanimously to delay final approval for nuclear power plants or the renewal of licenses at existing facilities.
Why did this happen?
The same reason power plant delays have happened for more than two decades…
There’s no long-term storage facility for nuclear waste!
I won’t get into the nuts and bolts of why this dilemma exists. It’s just too messy.
From political minefields to backroom deals gone wrong, any confidence in resolving this issue is long gone.
And now, with natural gas so cheap and abundant — coupled with the reality that the integration of solar, wind, and energy efficiency measures has provided breathing room for the utilities — nuclear’s shine has faded in the United States.
Sure, there are plenty of folks who will continue to fight the good fight.
And perhaps one day far in the future, the nuclear industry in the United States will resume its course…
Until then, our nuclear profits will just have to come from opportunities outside the U.S.
OECD Banks on Nuclear
We already know that China, India, South Korea, and Russia have an enormous amount of nuclear power currently in planning and construction phases.
These four countries alone are expected to provide 44 percent of nuclear power’s growth over the next 20 years.
We also know that the global demand for uranium will grow steadily as the world continues to build out nuclear power capacity.
As a recent OECD report notes:
Despite the Fukushima Daichi nuclear accident of March 2011, the development and growth of nuclear power looks set to continue in the coming decades. Although the accident at Fukushima has had repercussions for nuclear power in several countries, the ever-increasing global demand for electricity and the need to decarbonise electricity generation means that nuclear energy is set to experience strong growth in rapidly developing parts of the world. Alongside this demand for nuclear power, the demand for uranium – the fuel which powers nuclear energy production – is also set to rise.
Of course, it’s not just uranium opportunities making investors salivate…
Last year, after a nuclear fuels research project showed a new kind of nuclear fuel that could be more efficient and provide a larger safety margin than uranium, nuclear insiders started gravitating toward the company that backed the project.
Turns out not only is this company the new star of the nuclear fuels industry… it also owns nearly every ounce of the materials needed to produce this fuel.
Testing continues, but it looks like this company has pretty much hit the ball out of the park when it comes to supplying an entirely new fleet of nuclear reactors with a technologically superior fuel.
The Dumbest Crowd in History
As bullish as I am on global nuclear power development, when it comes to the United States, nothing fattens my wallet like domestic oil and gas production.
Whether it’s the latest in cutting-edge enhanced oil recovery, or the mountain of natural gas plays that’s been supplying us with a steady stream of cash for the past few years…
If you want to profit from American energy, you have to be in the domestic oil and gas space. It’s that simple.
And if you need a little extra motivation (though I can’t imagine why a huge pile of cash isn’t enough), consider that our monthly deficits to OPEC exceed $10 billion a month.
As T. Boone Pickens said, “So here we are, importing dirty oil from the enemy. We’re gonna go down as the dumbest crowd in history that’s ever come to town.”
I’d prefer take the alternate route, bid farewell to OPEC, and get rich off the development of our own homegrown resources.
To a new way of life and a new generation of wealth…
Jeff Siegel
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Jeff is the founder and managing editor of Green Chip Stocks. For more on Jeff, go to his editor’s page.
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