I’ve been investing in nuclear energy stocks since before Covid. I suppose my reasoning for wanting to be involved in the sector was because I think it’s the energy of the future.
A pellet of uranium, the size of a finger nail, can create the same amount of energy as 1 ton of coal, or 150 gallons of oil. (Roughly 1 MWh of electricity)
The nuclear lifecycle creates minimal carbon emissions. And it’s 0 carbon emissions while actually producing the electricity. All of the carbon emissions come from mining, fuel processing, construction, and waste management. It’s on par with wind energy for lifecycle emissions without the drawback of being an intermittent form of energy.
For some context here, nuclear energy produces 3-15 gCO2/kWh across the lifecycle while natural gas produces 400-500 gCO2/kWh.
An unfortunate realization I’ve come to regarding the performance of nuclear energy stocks is that they’re heavily dependent on the performance of tech companies, specifically AI. Friday and today saw widespread declines across nuclear energy stocks because Microsoft noted less demand than they originally thought for new data centers.
I understand industry plays a large part of the performance of energy deliverers, but it’s seemed that other energy companies are at least diversified across a range of sectors. If I wanted my investments to grow or fall with AI….I would have invested in AI.