GEV and Rolls-Royce were always in the lead. It just took the market a while to come around to that view.
From Barron's, September 29:
The race to build new nuclear reactors in the U.S. is heating up, and GE Vernova looks like it’s in the lead.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved a construction permit on Tuesday for a new reactor designed by GE Vernova and Japanese company Hitachi. The reactor, known as the BWRX-300, will be built in Tennessee at a site known as Clinch River controlled by the Tennessee Valley Authority, a government-owned utility.
The approval came after just 14 months, four months ahead of the expected schedule, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, or NRC. The NRC has been under pressure from Congress and the Trump administration to speed up its reviews.
It’s just the second construction permit issued for a new kind of nuclear reactor in the U.S. in more than a decade.
The first was given earlier this year to TerraPower, a small-reactor developer founded by Bill Gates that’s building its first unit in Wyoming. TerraPower is still a private company.
Construction permits aren’t a guarantee that reactors will be built, but they open up the potential that these companies will start putting steel in the ground and not just issuing news releases.
GE Vernova Hitachi’s BWRX-300 reactor is a miniaturized version of a boiling-water reactor, which is a kind of reactor that GE has been building for decades in the U.S. The new version has 300 megawatts of power capacity, or enough for about 300,000 homes, versus the old versions, which often had more than 1,000 megawatts of capacity.
Customers seem to like the mini versions, which are designed to be cheaper and faster to build, because parts can be prefabricated and assembled more easily. Canada is already building a BWRX-300 in Ontario, with plans to build up to four of them. Earlier this month, nuclear developer Blue Energy applied for a construction permit to build a BWRX-300 in Texas.
The permit doesn’t mean the Tennessee reactor will definitely get built. The TVA is looking for partners to help offset the cost of building it, because the utility is concerned that greenlighting a new machine like this could be expensive, a spokesman said. The partner could be a data center or another large commercial customer that needs a lot of power....
....MUCH MORE
$960.15 last, up $9.66 (1.1%) on the day, +47.3% year-to-date, +58.9% 1-year, +735.3% 3-years.
Vs. +11.36%; +13.59% and +77.78% for the S&P 500 at YTD/1-year/3-year
January 2025 - "AI-exposed power stocks get crushed as fears about DeepSeek trigger stock market sell-off" (GEV; OKLO; PWR; CEG)
Referring back to the introduction to this morning's "GE Vernova hit with downgrade by Guggenheim (GEV)":
And though it is based on valuation rather than corporate or macro events the downgrade is, unfortunately, from Guggenheim who have been very timely in their calls.
See for example December 5's "GE Vernova shares see 33% target hike from Guggenheim, Buy rating upheld"
In pre-market action the stock is down $57.49 (13.67%) to $363.00.
The other "quality" name we have been touting, electric infrastructure contractor Quanta Services is down $28.01 (7.82%) at $330.02.
It is days like today that are the reason we prefer quality over super-spec lottery tickets: the good ones come back (eventually) the rest may, or may not....
The small modular nuke wannabes OKLO; SMR and the quantum computing stocks, RGTI, QBTS etc. are among the lottery tickets that may or may not come back.
Quanta and GE Vernova will survive and thrive. Even without AI. The U.S. and the world need to string more powerlines and need more generating capacity that will come on line faster than nukes or a baby nukes.
May 2025 - "Trump plots ‘Manhattan Project 2’ in nuclear power push" (CCJ; GEV):
The "set it and forget it" stocks are in the headline, Cameco among the miners and GE Vernova among the nuke reactor manufacturers.
However, as is so often the case the speculative lottery tickets are seeing a lot of enthusiasm for their shares. The problem with them as investments are 1) a lack of stuff like sales/earnings/cash flow and 2) our conviction that we will see at least one and possibly three bear markets before they have products.
And in bear markets it is the companies lacking in sales/earnings/cash flow that get hit hardest; as investors begin to question whether they may have made a big mistake.
Addendum: I should have mentioned that with Cameco you also get 49% of nuke plant company Westinghouse. Brookfield owns the 51%.
June 2025 - "Trump plans executive orders to power AI growth in race with China" (PWR; GEV; CCJ):
I think we're positioned correctly with the Quanta, GE Vernova, Cameco etc.
But until sales, earnings, and cash flow catch up to the news, valuations are getting stretched.
But at least we have sales, earnings, and cash flow should the overall market tumble.
Money coming in the front door is comforting and a cushion against impulsivity, regret and all the other things that get in the way of big gains.
July 2025 - ICYMI: "In Small Nuclear Reactors, There’s One Clear Leader Today" (GEV)
A bit of snark in November 2025:
"Will General Electric's New Canadian Nuclear Reactor Doom Oklo to Irrelevance?" (GEV)
There is something to be said for actually having a product....
And Roller?
June 2026 - BritTech: "Sweden's Vattenfall picks Rolls-Royce SMR for nuclear power project"
Bastards.
October 2025 - "What Will Rolls-Royce Gain From the UK–US Nuclear Deal?"
Although this reads a bit like a Rolls-Royce promotional piece it is good background. The company will be popping up in more and more discussions of small modular reactors.*February 2026 at Yahoo News - Rolls-Royce drops plan for nuclear reactor on the moonApril 2026 - "Reeves hands Rolls-Royce £600m to build mini-nukes in Britain"