American stakeholders from the top down have pondered how to invest in the nuclear revolution for nearly a century.
"No bucks, no Buck Rogers" is the famous line from Tom Wolfe's book "The Right Stuff," the story of America's mid-20th century space program.
I'm no Tom Wolfe, and "no bucks, no Bob Oppenheimer" is indeed alliterative but awkward, though both antecedent efforts succeeded on many levels.
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So perhaps that is a good place to start to answer a question many investors, traders and speculators have been asking in 2025.
Because as high as we may push prices of assets related to nuclear power, real domestic progress on this revolution, as was the case with the Manhattan and the Mercury projects, begins with federal funding.
The demand side is certainly expanding at a rapid pace – a pace that's already causing electric power producers to scramble for generation capacity.
And it is a global story. If Beijing follows through on its 14th Five Year Plan, China will build 150 nuclear reactors over the next 15 years and reach 200 gigawatts (GW) of nuclear power by 2035.
At the November 2024 COP29 climate summit, 31 countries, 140 nuclear industry companies and 14 large financial institutions pledged to triple global nuclear generation by 2050.
But, when it comes to how to invest in the nuclear revolution, the buck starts with this White House.
If you executive order it
During his January 20 inaugural address, President Trump declared a "national energy emergency" and triggered a chain reaction that so far has culminated in four executive orders.
Shortly after Trump took the oath of office for the second time, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said "the long-awaited American nuclear renaissance must launch" during this administration.
Finally, on May 23, the president signed four executive orders that together aim to revitalize the domestic nuclear energy industry.
"By lowering regulatory and cost barriers to entry and providing funding for nuclear plants," Goldman Sachs writes, "the orders target an expansion of nuclear power in the US from around 100 GW today to 400 GW by 2050."
"Of the four," observes legendary utility investor Roger Conrad, "building nuclear to serve government facilities is easily the most important."
That's because "no investor-owned company will get buy-in until it can deliver a credible all-in cost estimate for new nuclear."
Indeed, Trump has directed the Energy Department to designate AI data centers and military bases as critical defense facilities and to utilize legal authorities to site and approve the deployment of advanced reactors to power them
The president has also ordered the Defense Department to build a nuclear reactor at a domestic military installation to commence operations within the next three years.
Altogether, it seems like the start of revolutionary stuff – a strong signal of intent to expand American nuclear power.
Still, Conrad notes, "Unlike China, we lack a scaled-up supply chain."
Make the world a better place through nuclear energy
One advantage often cited by proponents of other sources of clean but intermittent energy, such as wind and solar, is nuclear's ability to support baseload generation.
Baseload generation is the minimum level of constant power supply a utility or electric grid must produce to meet continuous, consistent demand.
The grid in the U.S. aggregates multiple sources of baseload generation, including natural gas combined cycle plants, coal-fired power plants, hydropower plants and geothermal plants as well as nuclear plants.
Advocates say nuclear balances fluctuations from wind and solar and helps maintain frequency and voltage levels.
Natural gas is now the No. 1 source of baseload generation, having surpassed coal amid the U.S. shale revolution. Nuclear energy accounts for approximately 18% of baseload generation.
Whether gigawatt-hours of nuclear generation will rise as a share of total generation is a matter of money. It costs a lot to build capacity and to produce nuclear-fired electricity.
But the president and his people are pushing, hard, for a deregulation-inspired renaissance.
Nuclear energy realities
There may be lingering fear generated by Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima as well as legitimate concern about the long-term storage problem presented by spent nuclear fuel.
But support for nuclear energy among the American people has never been higher.
President Trump confronts a different sort of problem, though.
"There's no way presently to accurately project costs of a new nuclear reactor for investors and regulators," says Conrad. Small module reactors (SMRs) are a questionable solution: "You get less energy, and, if anything, the ability to project costs is far worse, as there are really only prototypes right now."
It's a different story for solar, wind and storage: Projects including combinations of infrastructure assets can be planned, sited, permitted, procured for, financed and built in 12 to 18 months. As Conrad notes, "You can therefore lock in costs."
That's not to say there is no role for nuclear energy. Restarts are happening – Three Mile Island will reopen in 2028 to power Microsoft (MSFT) data centers.
Operators are extending licenses and upgrading existing facilities, and there are unlikely to be any more shutdowns any time soon.
"Despite the support of Big Tech, Biden and now Trump," Conrad observes, "we're seeing no new orders for big plants or SMRs."
Decision-makers have the still-recent example of Southern Company's (SO) experience building two new reactors at its Vogtle facility, which ran over the planned budget by approximately $17 billion and over the construction deadline by about seven years.
Getting a lid on costs is the most important thing, "and relaxing permitting will only do so much," according to Conrad.
"It may actually add costs if insurance rates rise in response. Trying to get new nuclear built is kind of swimming upstream despite the bipartisan support."
There is definitely interest. Dominion Resources (D) included preliminary discussion of SMRs in its most recent long-term supply plan, as have Duke Energy (DUK) and Entergy (ETR).
It is limited, though. CEO Bob Blue said during his company's fourth-quarter conference call that Dominion has no interest in reviving the construction of Westinghouse-built AP1000 reactors at the Sumner site in South Carolina it acquired along with SCANA in 2019.
Southern Company highlighted its success at Vogtle units 3 and 4 and is considering upgrades at units 1 and 2. But management has also been clear that it has no plans to build new nuclear capacity right now.
There is a serious path forward, one American Nuclear Society CEO Craig Piercy identifies with a look back: "America was once the dominant supplier of civil nuclear energy technologies to the world," Piercy writes in an open letter to Wright, "but we have allowed our supply chain to atrophy."
China leads in new builds, Piercy notes, and "Russia has the best 'zero money down' offer on a nuclear reactor in the world." According to Piercy, "Both nations have made civil nuclear exports a core pillar of their foreign policies."
He concludes that it's "time for the U.S. to do the same." Restoring commercial nuclear capability "will be worth it, for jobs, economic growth, and national security."
That all requires investment from the federal government.
Nuclear energy plays
Two basic themes define the universe of investable nuclear energy assets: uranium and generation. Uranium is the feedstock for thermal-neutron reactors used in electric power generation.
You can tie it all together with four stocks well-positioned to operate and grow amid existing constraints and an exchange-traded fund that holds both of them.
Data is as of June 18.
Cameco
- Sector: Energy
- Industry: Consumable fuels
- Market value: $30.3 billion
- Dividend yield: 0.2%
Canada-based Cameco (CCJ, $69.67) is the largest publicly traded uranium company in the world and the second-largest uranium producer. It will benefit from eventual rising demand for nuclear feedstock in the U.S. as it already benefits from rising demand around the world.
CCJ is up 35.6% so far this year. And, over the trailing three years, the energy stock has outperformed the S&P 500 with a total return of 239.7% vs 70.3% for the index.
Cameco's uranium production accounted for roughly 18% of the global total in 2024. Management has said that if implemented at 10% on Canadian energy products it doesn't expect a material impact on its 2025 results from Trump administration tariffs.
"Geopolitical uncertainty and heightened concerns about energy security, national security, and climate change continued to improve the demand and supply fundamentals for the nuclear power industry and the fuel cycle that is required to support it," Cameco said in the management discussion and analysis statement of its 2024 annual report.
"Increasingly," management notes, "countries and companies around the globe are recognizing the critical role nuclear power must play in providing carbon-free and secure baseload power."
Constellation Energy
- Sector: Utilities
- Industry: Electric power generation
- Market value: $96.0 billion
- Dividend yield: 0.5%
Constellation Energy (CEG, $306.43) – among Kiplinger contributor James Glassman's top 10 stock picks for 2025 – owns and operates 21 nuclear reactors in the U.S. that generate a total of approximately 19,400 MW, enough to power nearly 20 million homes.
The utility stock has posted a year-to-date gain of 37.4% vs 2.3% for the S&P 500, extending its trailing-three-year run to 441%.
Constellation is far and away the largest operator of nuclear energy plants in the U.S. "They're basically unicorns," says Conrad of power generator Constellation and uranium producer Cameco.
Constellation recently announced a $100 million investment plan for its Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant in Maryland.
And a 20-year power purchase agreement with Meta Platforms (META) to supply power from Constellation's Clinton Clean Energy Center to Mark Zuckerberg's operations in southern Illinois is a model for Big Tech as it turns AI ambition to AI reality.
"Wall Street hated Exelon's strategy of buying all those nuclear plants in the 1990s and 2000s – now people can't get enough of it," Conrad notes. Exelon (EXC) spun off CEG in 2022.
NANO Nuclear Energy
- Sector: Industrials
- Industry: Electrical equipment
- Market value: $1.4 billion
- Dividend yield: N/A
NANO Nuclear Energy (NNE, $37.97) says it believes it's the first publicly listed U.S. company focusing on the design and development of portable nuclear microreactors. And NNE is certainly behaving like a unicorn in the medium-term aftermath of its May 2024 initial public offering (IPO).
The industrial stock is up nearly 850% in a little more than a year. Its "electrical equipment" is indeed something else again, at least in the eyes of a market eager for names close to the commanding AI revolution.
NANO completed a couple of key acquisitions early in 2025 – the stationary KRONOS MMR and the portable LOKI MMR – which, according to Founder, Chairman and President Jay Yu, put the company "in a leading position in the microreactor race in U.S."
NANO has also "solidified" working agreements with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) for the KRONOS MMR and is working to construct the first research microreactor on campus grounds in the U.S.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has approved the Fuel Qualification Methodology Topical Report for the KRONOS MMR, "a major milestone for the commercial microreactor sector in general and crucial for the eventual construction of the microreactor system on campus grounds."
Management expects the UIUC project to lead to eventual commercialization of KRONOS MMRs "throughout many industries across the world."
Oklo
- Sector: Utilities
- Industry: Electric power generation
- Market value: $8.6 billion
- Dividend yield: N/A
Oklo (OKLO, $62.02), like NNE, is a recent addition to the universe of investable nuclear assets, broadly defined, having also completed its IPO in May 2024.
It was the first company to receive a site use permit from the Energy Department for a commercial advanced fission plant and also submitted the first custom combined license application for an advanced reactor to the NRC.
Oklo is also developing advanced fuel recycling technologies in collaboration with the Energy Department and U.S. National Laboratories.
And its subsidiary Atomic Alchemy recently started site characterization work at a potential location for a commercial radioisotope production facility at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL).
OKLO stock jumped 23% the day President Trump signed his executive orders to advance nuclear energy. The company is developing advanced fission power plants to provide clean, reliable energy at scale.
Oklo would certainly stand to benefit from serious efforts to reduce regulatory and cost barriers and to provide funding as the federal government seeks to accelerate nuclear adoption in the U.S.
VanEck Uranium+Nuclear Energy ETF
- Assets under management: $1.6 billion
- Number of holdings: 28
- Dividend yield: 0.6%
- Expense ratio: 0.56%, or $56 annually for every $10,000 invested
The VanEck Uranium+Nuclear Energy ETF (NLR, $108.88) has outperformed the SPDR S&P 500 Trust (SPY) as well as its peer the Sprott Uranium Miners ETF (URNM) year to date, 33.9% vs 2.2% and 16.5%, respectively.
NLR is also outperforming over the trailing three years, 130.8% vs 69.9% and 73.1%, respectively, helped by its significant exposure to CEG and CCJ.
The Global X Uranium ETF (URA) is up on NLR for the year with its 41% total return. But NLR wins over the three-year time frame, 131% to 120%
NLR is a concentrated fund with 28 holdings. CEG is tops at 9%, followed by OKLO at 8% and CCJ at 7% of assets. NLR captures upside generated by strong operators and avoids more speculative and hyped-up risk.
NLR, designed to track as closely as possible the price and yield performance of the MVIS Global Uranium & Nuclear Energy Index, is an efficient way to invest in the nuclear revolution.
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