How Did U.S. Nuclear Power Sink This Low?

Well, you probably knew this was coming, and here it is: Tokyo-based Ubitus K.K., which happens to be an Nvidia-backed cloud services company, just announced plans to build a third major data complex in Japan — and the comapny wants it to be powered by nuclear energy.

In an interview last week with Yahoo Finance, Chief Executive Officer Wesley Kuo explained why nuclear was the obvious choice for Ubitus:

“Unless we have other better, efficient, and cheap energy, nuclear is still the most competitive option in terms of cost and the scale of supply. For industrial use — especially AI — they need a constant, high-capacity supply.”

Though indirectly, this represents yet another move into the field of nuclear energy by one of the world’s top tech brands, a trend that has been reinforcing itself on weekly basis for the last month.

What people don’t understand about this seemingly imminent revolution in nuclear energy is that the American infrastructure is nowhere near ready to provide the raw materials for any of this to happen at scale.

What Nuclear Energy Revolution?

As you read this, there are exactly zero new full-sized nuclear reactors planned in the United States.

Money has not been earmarked, sites have not been selected, and suppliers have not been contracted to build the next major multi-gigawatt nuclear power plant.

In fact, we’re in the middle of a major drought in terms of new production capacity, with last year’s startup of Vogtle Unit 3 in Georgia being the first new reactor to be fired up in the U.S. since 2016.

It took 14 years for that plant to go from breaking groundto production, and with nothing happening right now, it will be at least another decade and a half before the U.S. sees any new major nuclear power plants to supplement an already anemic grid.

And that’s only half of it.

Our uranium production has mirrored this state of delapitation, with domestic uranium fuel output going down to essentially nothing in recent years, despite substantial demand from both the civilian and military markets.

You don’t read about this because it doesn’t generate as many clicks as your latest political gossip, but for those who want ammunition for discreditingour incompetent, double-talking government, I’d say the most brazen example is our continued dealings with Russia for our domestic uranium supply.

We’re Paying the Guy We’re Fighting

We’ve spent almost three years and more than $100 billion helping Ukrainians halt the Russian invasion on the battlefield, and at the same, we’ve been paying Putin in U.S. dollars for the very same nuclear fuel that powers, among other things, our most famous symbols of power — our aircraft carriers and submarine fleets.

How’s that for pulling the wool over the eyes of the public?

Biden put a stop to this practice, finally, just this past spring, but he also signed a waiver that allowed for an exception to the rule.

One single company, based inside the capital beltway and once a property of the Department of Energy, still has permission from the White Houseto import Russian uranium.

The reason? Last year, this company became the first firm in the United States to begin new Uranium enrichment operations since 1954.

The product is high-grade uranium fuel, essential to the next generation of small modular reactors — the kind that Google, Microsoft, and Amazon plan to start building in the next few years to power their own AI data centers.

The Most Important Company Inside the Capital Beltway

So while those massive reactors whose cooling towers you may have seen in the distance, spewing water vapor into the air, are not on the planning books at the moment, much smaller — even portable — nuclear reactors are becoming their own industry.

And this one company will feed them all with the uranium they need to satisfy growing power demand from Big Tech.

The last month has been a whirlwind for the nuclear industry, and this particular company has gotten its fair share of attention.

Shares are up more than 100% from this past August, and it looks like it might be just the beginning as Big Tech ramps up its efforts to build an energy market dedicated to the development of AI.

It’s a story you might not believe, and you can get all of it, including all the essential details, right here.