Latest news with #nuclearindustry
Bloomberg
3 days ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
Atos Gets Offer From French State for Strategic Computing Assets
Atos SE said it received an offer from the French state for the group's advanced computing assets, which values the unit deemed critical to the country's nuclear industry at €410 million ($467 million). The assets include high-performance computing, quantum and artificial intelligence divisions that are expected to generate revenue of about €800 million in 2025, according to a statement on Monday. Atos said it aims to sign a binding agreement in the coming weeks and close the transaction in 2026. The enterprise value includes €110 million in earn-outs based on profitability indicators.
News.com.au
6 days ago
- Business
- News.com.au
Going nuclear: Trump's EOs offer atomic opportunities for Australian uranium industry
President Trump has signed sweeping executive orders promoting the US nuclear industry The EOs set out a plan to quadruple US nuclear power production Australia has the largest uranium reserves in the world The morning of July 16, 1945, a thunderstorm washed the Jornada del Muerto desert clean, delaying a test that would change the course of history. By about 5am, the skies had cleared and winds had died to nothing. At exactly 5:29 and 21 seconds, the pre-dawn darkness was engulfed in blindingly bright light, transforming from yellow to red to purple and finally white in a matter of seconds. A massive shockwave thundered through the earth as a 600-metre-wide fireball punched up into the heavens, scattering what cloud remained. As the dust settled, where once had stood a 30-metre-tall steel tower topped by a plutonium bomb, there was now only desert sand – transformed into radioactive-green glass. The Trinity nuclear weapon test was a success. Humans had harnessed the power of the atom, if only for a single, stunning moment. A nuclear future Fast forward almost 80 years, and nuclear power produces 9% of the world's electricity generation. No longer the bogeyman of our grandparents' generation, nuclear power has become a standard component of the global energy mix, regarded with caution and optimism rather than outright fear. Today, there are about 440 nuclear reactors operating in 31 countries, providing about 25% of the globe's low-carbon energy. The United States is home to 94 of those reactors across 54 nuclear power plants, but that number is almost certain to rise in the next decade. US President Trump has signed sweeping executive orders aimed at kick-starting a new era of production within the US nuclear power industry, positioning it as a leader in nuclear technology once again. The EOs outline a plan to quadruple nuclear power generation in the US from 100 gigawatts to 400GW by 2050. To achieve that, the US government intends to ramp up power production at existing nuclear plants and initiate construction on at least 10 new large reactors by 2030. Supported by federal grants and funding from the Department of Energy, much of that new nuclear energy capacity will be used to support data centres and similar Artificial Intelligence infrastructure. Of course, building more reactors is all well and good, but you still need enriched uranium to power them. Russia and China dominate enriched uranium production One of the core focuses of Trump's new nuclear power EOs is divesting uranium imports away from Russia and China, which collectively account for about 57% of the world's enriched uranium production. They're followed by France (12%), the US itself (11%), the Netherlands (8%), the UK (7%) and Germany (6%). There are only four major companies that enrich uranium – Rosatom, CNNC, Urenco and Orano, all majority state-owned. Russia and China also have outsized control over global uranium mining production. Kazakhstan is the largest uranium miner globally, producing about 43% of total supply, followed by Canada (15%) Namibia (11%) and Australia (9%). As a former soviet bloc country, Kazakhstan has had close ties with Russia for decades, enriching much of its uranium with its northern neighbour. It's estimated about half of Kazakhstan's uranium is exported to China, with the rest going to Canada, Europe and the US. Trump is expected to invoke the Cold War-era Defense Production Act to declare a national emergency over America's reliance on Russian and Chinese enriched uranium and expand domestic conversion capacity. To that end, the administration intends to build out a commercial nuclear fuel recycling and reprocessing sector, a distinct departure from previous government policy which forbade the use of recycled fuel in commercial reactors. The EOs also detail a plan to expand domestic uranium conversion capacity and enrichment capabilities, with the end goal of producing enough enriched uranium to meet both civilian and defence reactor needs. What does it all mean for Australia? While the social, economic and environmental impacts from this step change in US energy strategy are bound to be far reaching and potentially world changing over the next few decades, today they represent an opportunity. Although much of it is locked away by state-based uranium mining bans, Australia holds about one third of total global resources of uranium. South Australia is home to the only producing mines at present, but the deposits themselves are scattered across the country, many in premier mining districts. As a political, economic and geographically strategic ally of the United States of America, Australia – alongside our cousins over in Canada – is incredibly well placed to take advantage of increased uranium demand. 'The latest Executive Orders reflect a clear, strategic shift in US energy policy,' Recharge Metals managing director Felicity Repacholi said. 'With projections suggesting the US will need up to four times more uranium to meet its clean energy and national security goals, the focus is finally returning to where it all begins – the mine gate. 'You can't expand nuclear energy, conversion, or enrichment capacity without a reliable supply of uranium.' Stepping into the uranium demand gap Recharge Metals (ASX:REC) is an ASX-listed uranium and lithium mining company with projects in the US and Canada. The company's US-based Carter project in Montana holds two uranium deposits with a total of about 5.1 million pounds of the yellow stuff. REC is currently moving through the permitting process for Carter, a regulatory requirement that could be drastically expedited under Trump's new EOs. 'There's now real momentum from the US government to reduce reliance on foreign uranium supply. That sends a strong signal to markets, developers, and explorers alike,' Repacholi explained. 'The increased regulatory flexibility and positive sentiment are making it more feasible than ever to bring new supply online. The US needs uranium and Recharge aims to be part of that solution.' Australian uranium companies are already benefiting from a surge in positive sentiment for the industry, which has been under pressure from short sell positions in recent months. At time of writing, Boss Energy (ASX:BOE) has climbed 24% in the last month, with several fellow ASX uranium companies adding materially to their share prices in the same period. Deep Yellow (ASX:DYL) shares have jumped 16.7%, Terra Uranium (ASX:T92) 16.67% and Recharge Metals 80% in the last 30 days. Trump's push to accelerate the US nuclear energy industry isn't without its flaws, and critics no doubt have a raft of valid concerns, but even without this new administrative push the demand for uranium has only been growing. AI data centres hungry for low-carbon energy Ever since the artificial intelligence arms race between major technology companies like Microsoft and Apple kicked off, tech companies have been starving for more energy generation capacity. As many of them have climate and emissions targets, nuclear power has emerged as a highly desirable, low-carbon option. Last year, Microsoft signed a 20-year deal to reopen the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor, while Google has ordered six or seven small nuclear reactors from California'sKairos Power and Amazon purchased a nuclear-powered data centre from Talen Energy. Goldman Sachs estimates some 85-90GW of nuclear capacity will be needed just to meet data centre power demands by 2030. 'In the US alone, big tech companies have signed new contracts for more than 10 GW of possible new nuclear capacity in the last year, and Goldman Sachs Research sees potential for three plants to be brought online by 2030,' a research note stated. The World Nuclear Association's 2023 Nuclear Fuel Report predicts a 28% increase in uranium demand from 2023 to 2030, and a 51% increase from 2031-2040. That would take global uranium demand from 80,000 tonnes today, to about 102,000 pounds in 2030 and 120,000 pounds by 2040. Whether it's the Trump Administration or the Nasdaq's Magnificent Seven driving demand, the appetite for uranium is growing, and Australia is very well placed to meet it. At Stockhead, we tell it like it is. While Recharge Metals is a Stockhead advertiser, it did not sponsor this article.
Yahoo
25-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Why Energy Fuels Stock Rocketed 20% Higher Today
A presidential push for developing the nuclear industry led to a monster rally in the stock. The company is a miner of uranium, a crucial fuel used in nuclear power generation. 10 stocks we like better than Energy Fuels › Uranium miner Energy Fuels (NYSEMKT: UUUU) received a major boost to its stock on Friday from one of the most powerful market movers lately -- President Donald Trump. On news that Trump signed a set of executive orders hastening the development of the nuclear energy industry, a clutch of sector stocks rose dramatically. Since uranium is the fuel of choice for nuclear power generation, Energy Fuels stock was swept up in the rally and closed Friday 20% higher. That was miles ahead of the S&P 500 index, which landed in the red with a 0.4% drop. Demand for power in the U.S. is rising steeply, not least because of the resource-heavy requirements of artificial intelligence (AI). Addressing this need is a priority for the president's administration, as strongly evidenced by his declaring an energy emergency on the first day of his current term in office. On Friday the president signed four executive orders, which collectively ease regulations on the nuclear industry and support its development. More helpful for Energy Fuels directly, the orders also provide greater scope for uranium mining and enrichment activities. Trump said of nuclear: "It's a hot industry. It's a brilliant industry." "You have to do it right," he added. Energy Fuels is a clear and obvious pick-and-shovel play on Trump's zeal to get the nuclear industry up and running again. There's quite some distance between intent and execution, however, so we'll have to watch for early indications about how this new push for nuclear is going before better judging how beneficial it might be for the company. Before you buy stock in Energy Fuels, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Energy Fuels wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $640,662!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $814,127!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 963% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 168% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join . See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of May 19, 2025 Eric Volkman has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Why Energy Fuels Stock Rocketed 20% Higher Today was originally published by The Motley Fool
Globe and Mail
23-05-2025
- Business
- Globe and Mail
Why Energy Fuels Stock Rocketed 20% Higher Today
Uranium miner Energy Fuels (NYSEMKT: UUUU) received a major boost to its stock on Friday from one of the most powerful market movers lately -- President Donald Trump. On news that Trump signed a set of executive orders hastening the development of the nuclear energy industry, a clutch of sector stocks rose dramatically. Since uranium is the fuel of choice for nuclear power generation, Energy Fuels stock was swept up in the rally and closed Friday 20% higher. That was miles ahead of the S&P 500 index, which landed in the red with a 0.4% drop. Quite the comeback for the industry Demand for power in the U.S. is rising steeply, not least because of the resource-heavy requirements of artificial intelligence (AI). Addressing this need is a priority for the president's administration, as strongly evidenced by his declaring an energy emergency on the first day of his current term in office. On Friday the president signed four executive orders, which collectively ease regulations on the nuclear industry and support its development. More helpful for Energy Fuels directly, the orders also provide greater scope for uranium mining and enrichment activities. Trump said of nuclear: "It's a hot industry. It's a brilliant industry." "You have to do it right," he added. Fuel for future rallies? Energy Fuels is a clear and obvious pick-and-shovel play on Trump's zeal to get the nuclear industry up and running again. There's quite some distance between intent and execution, however, so we'll have to watch for early indications about how this new push for nuclear is going before better judging how beneficial it might be for the company. Should you invest $1,000 in Energy Fuels right now? Before you buy stock in Energy Fuels, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Energy Fuels wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $640,662!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $814,127!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor 's total average return is963% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to168%for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of May 19, 2025
Bloomberg
23-05-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
Oklo CEO Says Trump Nuclear EO Will Unleash Innovation
CC-Transcript 00:00How did your job just become easier as of an hour ago? A couple of ways. Thanks for having me. I think it's a pretty exciting moment, honestly, for American nuclear technology and American nuclear industry. It unlocks a couple of things, right? It moves forward, modernizing regulatory procedures and processes so that we can actually get them right in an efficient way. I think that's a big unlock because there's a lot of sclerosis and a lot of, frankly, inefficiencies baked in the process. We're really excited about what that does. It opens up more an alternative regulatory pathways for doing things. Department of Energy and Department of Defense sites. It moves forward some of the commercial opportunities and accelerates those in terms of being able to provide power for security. And it opens up supply chains for fuel. That's one of the biggest accelerants for us. Okay. Well, let's get to that, because part of the issue with nuclear, in part, is the cost. It's just so expensive to build a new plant. Expanding or keeping a plant running is one thing. Building a new one, something else. And small modular reactors are still it's still unproven in terms of its efficiencies to scale as well as cost. How does this help that? Yeah, I mean, the thing to me that sticks out is, is the actual cost drivers in a nuclear system really compared to all energy sources. And what I mean by that is to me the best fundamental metric is the actual energy efficiency or really the material efficiency to make energy from these systems. In other words, how many pounds or kilograms of steel, copper, concrete, fuel, etc. are needed per megawatt hour of energy produced? And nuclear requires the least by far. That means it should be the cheapest source of energy. It's some of these inefficiencies from a regulatory perspective, from kind of old, outdated requirements and processes that have slowed these things down from a commercial development and sort of iteration process to sort of unfold and actually tap into that economic potential. These things will help modernize and accelerate how we can do that and realize that because, look, if you used if you need the fewest materials to make what your product is, you inherently have a cost advantage. And so I think nuclear is well-positioned to frankly, be one of, if not the cheapest source and most scalable source of energy that we have. We've seen teasers of this. We've seen it work really well in other countries who've been able to continually build without this kind of regulatory decay. We're about to see that unlock in the U.S., I think in just just want to point out for our viewers, just in terms of the actual provisions, the contours of this executive order, we knew, of course, last year, I think, what Joe Biden had proposed, trying to triple nuclear capacity by 2050. Now, this new executive order by Trump would actually quadruple it by 2030. And that includes provisions to ensure ten large conventional reactors are under construction by that time. Where is the money going to come from? I think this is what's really exciting about now. We've seen this gradual build up of support from President Bush to Obama to President Trump to President Biden to President Trump again, of this continual escalation of support for nuclear because of it's important for energy, abundance and all of those pieces. And I think what we see happening here is the market wants power now in a way that's never been clear as we reshore jobs, as we drive electrification, as we think about how we want clean power to drive all the things we want to do here. And this massive piece that from power demand perspective, that air provides. So the money is going to come from the private markets, from the capital markets. We've already seen record capital inflows from investors, from strategic investors, from companies, from customers across the board into projects, things like what we're doing, things like some of our peers competitors are doing. They're going to drive these things forward. And I just have to say, this is like a real testament to a vision of, frankly, the president has Secretary Brigham has, Secretary Wright has on energy dominance. It's about unleashing the nuclear innovation ecosystem in the U.S. to actually start deploying. And it builds on great bipartisan wins in the past, including, for example, the advance act that last Congress and President Biden signed. So it's a pretty exciting time to see how these things are going to be moving forward. And the steps taken in a holistic approach today by the president really are going to supercharge this. One other provision in this that I think is interesting and of course, the first of these, or at least according to the executive order, will be on military installations. And I guess part of that is to get around some of the regulatory constraints that I think you were referring to a little bit earlier. Does that matter, the location of them, if they are on military, effectively on military bases, does that matter about its commercial application? I think it does, yes, in a couple of ways. For one, you know, that's going to be an important opportunity from a national security perspective as well as a market opportunity. Right. To provide clean, resilient, reliable, affordable power that offers significant sort of energy security benefits on bases both domestically and potentially even in some cases internationally. We need critical infrastructure to have the power that it relies on at our military bases around the country and abroad. And so opening up pathways to actually accelerate the deployment of nuclear technologies, to be able to provide that power is critically important. And one of the reasons that nuclear so resilient is you can put a lot of fuel in a single system that can run for a long time. In other words, when you load up a reactor with fuel, it might run for years, even a decade or more, without needing to refuel. So it's quite resilient against supply chain disruptions. You just can't do that with any other energy source. Renewables obviously aren't reliable enough and fossil fuels, you need to constantly bring in, you know, fuel replacements. And that's just a testament to the incredible energy density of nuclear. Jacob, Is the timeframe good enough, the tax credits, you can take effect with them as long as you begin construction by the end of 2028. That's not that far away for something like it's not that far. Can I know? I mean, I think I think it's a great question. I mean, I think we're hopeful, obviously, that those kind of the benefits and the importance of what the tax credits enable in terms of scaling initial technologies forward and drawing in capital to then become self-sustaining is important. Look, there's a natural expiration for those things that makes perfect sense. But we need to also recognize the window of time, which they can be most useful. We're positioned to benefit from that and be able to use those in a good way. And honestly, the actions done by these aeos actually help accelerate the timeframes to be able to actually take, you know, some of those credits into play. But, you know, honestly, I think there's a lot of opportunity to think about how you can move those. To be more honest, they are complementary to the EO signed today and even more accelerated. So, you know, we'll watch how things kind of continue to progress and in Congress, but there's still a lot of opportunity to sort of combine policy angles of permitting reform of kickstarting and supercharging supply chains and bringing to bear capital incentives to drive those private capital inflows and accelerate them to build more and more nuclear plants and all the benefits that that unleashes in the country.
