Nuclear Revival: From Yellowcake to Power ⚡️
Open Upside. Nuclear Downside.
“Ideas rule the world.” —Philo
Markets have been dominated by AI since the ChatGPT moment of late 2022 — and so has the whole world.
I find notable similarities between the themes of AI and Nuclear Energy.
This is the setup ☢️🔻
First, contrary to what many think, this AI boom phase has not been underpinned solely by the profit motive. No, this is existential and bigger than just profit. I have tried to drive this point home for years to no avail.
I won’t get into that here but readers can refer to Zooming out on AI and our other AI-themed pieces for more. There is no doubt in my mind that AI technology proliferation and the AI capex cycle will weigh on the leaders in the space — especially at these current valuations.
The Nuclear Pyramid
Today I am writing about something as interesting as AI — but from an existential perspective, even more important.
Staying behind on the latest advances in AI means your models run a bit slower and you have slightly diminished capabilities.
But staying behind on energy means
your neighbour can weaponise his geography against you
and your “strategic” trading partner can squeeze you out until you concede to his demands
The swan song of the American Empire, recently gone on hyperdrive because of Trump 2.0 has exploded this risk to the upside. This is where we are now.
Takaichi is pushing for a Nuclear revival in Japan, the Germans are waking up from their Green slumber (Our Realpolitik piece here) and the Europeans are talking about their own Nuclear arsenal as the Americans are proving to not be reliable partners.
And Trump 2.0 isn’t sitting back on Nuclear proliferation either with a reform of the NRC — pushing for faster and bigger investment into everything Nuclear.
Things are ripe for a major wave of everything Nuclear, layered on top of the everything AI cycle. Things could get very crazy. Fortunes will be made and lost, like never before.
In this issue of Breakout we are adding fundamental indicators to our charts — in an attempt to understand the space beyond just technicals and separate the wheat from the chaff.….Or should I say, separate yellowcake from uranium ore 😂
For example, does the name even have revenues?
How is it creating value, if any?
How does it fund itself?
Are shares outstanding up 8X in 10 years?
Is it strategically stockpiling yellowcake?
This exercise will give us a good sense of the range of outcomes (RoU) of each setup.
In thematic hypes, such as this, players usually obsess over the upside and ignore the downside. This is how they get burned.
I call it blind optionality and we talk about it in Philo’s Academy.
Have you seen all those screenshots doing the rounds on FinTwit with P&Ls quickly down 80%?
They underestimated the range of outcomes, sized improperly and blew up.
👏👏When RoU is so wide, all the edge comes from position sizing — not just from an asymmetric setup.👏👏
Why? Because a wide range of outcomes means open upside and open downside: 100X or -100%.
In Nuclear, most of the names fall into that category.
Some are well capitalised and have robust business models — but the rest are extremely speculative. In this issue we will look into names across that spectrum.
Uranium U308
The Global Financial Crisis of 2007 (“GFC”) later compounded by the Fukushima Incident broke the Nuclear Revival play and by extension, Uranium.
Uranium dropped by 3/4 from Fukushima till the pre-Covid bottom, causing many mines to become immediately non-viable and shut down.
The Covid re-opening reset interest in the Nuclear theme, which was later re-ignited by the major energy demands of AI proliferation.
Nuclear SPACs
Oklo
A 15X since the De-SPAC, Oklo crashed back down by 60% since its late 2025 peak. Currently sitting at >$10bln in market cap with zero revenues. This is pure speculation.
The name falls under the SMR (Small Modular Reactors) niche. Their main project is the Aurora Powerhouse — which they intend to design, build and operate to sell power.
They struck a deal with META this January to deploy 1.2GW of power to support META’s Data Centers in the area.
In effect, this deal is a prepayment for power mechanism — with Oklo using the funds to extend their objectives.
The implication however is this: Oklo, and most of these names, will continue to use alternative means of funding.
In many ways, this feels similar to how the AI boom started…