If you’re a shareholder in the oft overlooked, little spoken-of nuclear power sector, your stocks are about to get shot in the arm thanks to Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.
In fact, it might be something we all can thank him for eventually.
Before I get into Putin’s effect on nuclear stocks, however, let’s do a quick crash course on why nuclear power may be more relevant now than ever before.
Below is an image of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant in West-central Japan.
With 7 reactors and a peak production capacity of 8 gigawatts, this facility — the most powerful nuclear plant in history — could provide more than 16 million homes with a flow of electrons when it was running at full bore. Our analysts have traveled the world over, dedicated to finding the best and most profitable investments in the global energy markets. All you have to do to join our Energy and Capital investment community is sign up for the daily newsletter below.
Compare that to the world’s biggest, most powerful solar farm, the 2.25 gigawatt Bhadia Solar Park in India, which can power 4.5 million homes.
That Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant takes up 1.5 square miles.
The Bhadia Solar Park takes up 21 square miles.
Solar panels, at best, last for 25 years before requiring replacement. The mass storage batteries typically operate for only a few years before failing.
By contrast, nuclear reactors have service lives ranging from 40 to 60 years.
Nuclear Stocks: The Most Overlooked In The Energy Field?
The bottom line is: regardless of how warm and fuzzy solar makes us all feel, when you look at those numbers, and factor in how difficult it will be to allocate all the land necessary for large-scale solar to supply a big chunk of our energy demands, just from a bureaucratic standpoint, you come to the inevitable conclusion that a more down to earth solution is necessary.
That solution is nuclear.
Now, the reasons aren’t a mystery. When done right, and when not subject to things like super-destructive acts of nature, nuclear power is remarkably safe and clean.
Used nuclear material can be responsibly disposed of, and not much of it is needed to run the reactors — dozens of tons per year on a national basis, instead of millions or tens of millions.
We know all of this, but for too long, it was too cheap and too easy to just rely on good ol’ fossil fuels.
With that now slowly being legislated into a tighter and tighter corner, the interest in nuclear power has been on the rise for years.
Here’s a good illustration of just how much activity has increased in the space… Between 2016 and 2023, only one new nuclear plant went online in the US.
Just one.
Right now, however, there are over a dozen new nuclear projects in various stages of planning, around the country.
Look At The Catalysts Facing Nuclear Stocks Today
Things have been ramping up for years, quietly but persistently… And then in 2022, the Russian invasion of Ukraine changed everything.
Along with a wide spectrum of sanctions, the US Department of Energy immediately began its plan to get off of Russia’s client list for the very nuclear fuel which would be absolutely necessary to power all of this new production capacity.
On May 14 2024, President Biden signed into law H.R.1042 — the Prohibiting Russian Uranium Imports Act.
Now, incredibly enough, up until the end of 2023, the US still had no substantial Uranium enrichment programs of its own.
We quit that business in the states all the way back in 1954, because why bother doing the dirty work that any number of foreign suppliers would be happy to do for pennies on the dollar.
This Nuclear Stock Is Like No Other. Literally.
Well, with one of our biggest suppliers now gone, and the demand about to shoot up, outsourcing itself became unsustainable.
One company has risen to the challenge.
Based in Bethesda, Maryland, this company today stands as the first and only US-based Uranium enrichment operation in operation since the mid 1950s.
And being such, it stands at the crossroads of two major forces in our national policy, and the economics that policy guides.
The campaign to decarbonize and the push for energy self-reliance on a national level.
This nuclear fuel supplier trades on the NYSE at a sub $1B market cap, mostly because the nuclear story just doesn’t resonate with retail investors, nor the institutional giants.
In an era of memes, DEI, ESG and whatever other mental-distractions we invent to get us through bleak realities, practical, long-term, non-sensense solutions often get overlooked.
And so this stock is undervalued.
But it won’t stay that way.
It could be one of the biggest stories to come out of the energy industry this decade, so don’t let it become a story you see in the MSM before you get a chance to learn more.
Fortune favors the bold, Alex Koyfman His flagship service, Microcap Insider, provides market-beating insights into some of the fastest moving, highest profit-potential companies available for public trading on the U.S. and Canadian exchanges. With more than 5 years of track record to back it up, Microcap Insider is the choice for the growth-minded investor. Alex contributes his thoughts and insights regularly to Energy and Capital. To learn more about Alex, click here.
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