From Bloomberg, June 12:
The radioactive metal’s price is up 233%, revealing the speed at which the world is embracing nuclear power once again.
Along the western edge of Canada’s Saskatchewan province, by a bend in a lake ringed by endless stands of black spruce, a small outpost has been carved out of the forest to mark what just might be the hottest new mining project on Earth today.
It is a desolate, unforgiving spot.
Even in April, the snow is still caked hard to the ice that coats the lake. Bone-chilling winds howl day and night. And there are no towns or villages or, for that matter, signs of life at all — beyond the occasional black bear or wolf — within a 50-mile radius.
What Saskatchewan has, though, is uranium. Lots of uranium. The bedrock is so loaded with it that the area around just one stretch of the lake, it is believed, could generate enough nuclear energy to power more than 40 million homes for a quarter century.
In one corner of the camp, deposit samples — small, black, radioactive bars — are all neatly laid out, row after row, in racks. Adam Engdahl throws on protective gloves, picks up one of the samples and beams. “This is my favorite.” Engdahl, a geologist with a startup mining outfit called NexGen Energy Ltd., proudly passes it around. It’s surprisingly heavy, like a dumbbell — a tell-tale sign, Engdahl says, of a bar that’s densely packed with uranium minerals.
For the longest time, no one much cared about any of this. Not after the 2011 Fukushima disaster. Nuclear energy was once again too scary, and uranium, the delicate and deadly fuel that powers the reactors, became a sleepy backwater in the global commodities market. But as climate change intensified and governments across the world were drawn anew to the steady carbon-free power generated by nuclear plants, interest in uranium deposits like this one picked up — slowly at first and then, after Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, at a frantic pace. Suddenly, much of the world needed an alternative to Russian energy.
Today, there are 61 nuclear power plants under construction globally. Another 90 or so are in the planning stage and more than 300 have been proposed. There’s even a push to re-open old plants that had been shuttered years ago.
The surge in the price of uranium is a testament to the magnitude, and speed, of this pivot back to nuclear. Over the past five years, the metal has climbed 233% — more than triple the gains in gold and copper even after declining a bit in 2024.
The mania has spilled over into the stock market, where traders are wildly bidding up shares of uranium companies. Many of the miners in Canada have soared more than 400% over the past four years, and NexGen now has a market value of almost $4 billion even though it hasn’t sold a single pound of the metal and doesn’t expect to do so until at least 2028. Some of the biggest names in finance have piled into the sector: Li Ka-shing, Steven Cohen, Stan Druckenmiller, among others....
....MUCH MORE
If interested see also:
Uranium Miner Cameco and Brookfield Renewable Partners To Buy Nuke Maker Westinghouse (CCJ; BEP)
April 8: Australia: "Uranium price creates new ASX boom"
April 3: Uranium—"Epic Fail The New Junta in Niger Tells the United States to Pack Up Its War and Go Home"
Related March 5: "Uranium Firms Revive Forgotten Mines as Price of Nuclear Fuel Soars"
Related, January 14: "World’s Biggest Uranium Miner Warns of Production Shortfall"
And something to tuck in the back of the reptile brain, part of the matrix for fashioning your plan for world domination:
European Bank For Reconstruction and Development Says Central Asia Is Where The Action IsSay Hi to Mackinder for me should you see him on the Silk Road.
January 14: "World’s Biggest Uranium Miner Warns of Production Shortfall"
November 2023: Uranium's Epic Rally Says Lots About the World Right Now
November 2023: "U.S. Re-enters the Nuclear Fuel Game"
Finally, as noted in an earlier post, a couple names:
...Which brings us right back around to green power. CCJ for the timid and "NAC Kazatomprom" for the adventurous. Dually listed LSE (KAP) and Kazakhstan Stock Exchange, Astana (KAZP)
