excerpt/ Nuclear was back in the news overnight and today...
Cameco — one of the world's few publicly traded uranium producers — reported Q1 2015 earnings after the bell yesterday.
Excluding one-time items, Cameco earned C$69 million (C$0.18/share), compared to C$36 million (C$0.09/share) in the same quarter a year ago.
More importantly, it said it expects a 5% increase in revenue this year, reversing its previous guidance of a 5% decline. It also increased its capital budget for 2015 by 9.5% to C$405 million.
An increase in capex is a bullish indication, as the company said it needs to increase capacity. It also just signed a 7.1 million pound supply agreement with India, which is aggressively pursuing nuclear for its 1.3 billion people, many of whom don't even have access to electricity.
Japan
The restart of Japan's nuclear reactors is looked to as a bullish kick-off party for the uranium and nuclear sectors. All of its reactors — which supplied 30% of its electricity — have been offline since the earthquake in 2011.
One reactor has been approved for restart, and that's expected later this year with more to follow.
This week, Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry lent more long-term support to the country's nuclear fleet, saying that nuclear should still account for 22% of the energy mix in 2030.
Because of the nuclear shutdown, the use of coal and LNG in Japan is at record highs, causing increased costs and carbon emissions.
Nuclear, remember, is emission-free, and safer than all other forms of baseload generation on a per-kilowatt-hour-generated basis.
Africa, Middle East, & Asia
The rest of the world is also hotly pursuing nuclear energy for all the benefits it brings.
I told you yesterday that Argentina and Nigeria recently signed on to build reactors.
This morning, Algeria reiterated its commitment to nuclear energy, with its foreign minister telling a Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference that “Algeria reiterates the inalienable right of state members of the NPT to develop and use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, in conformity with Article 4 of the NPT.”
The world is clamoring for nuclear.
As the Wall Street Journal reported this morning:
The ghosts of Lenin and Mao might well be smirking. Communist and authoritarian nations are moving to take global leadership in, and profit from, the commercial use of nuclear power, a technology made possible by the market-driven economies of the West. New research and development could enable abundant, affordable, low-carbon energy as well as further beneficial products for industry and medicine.
China is joining Russia to build five new reactors in Iran—regardless of what becomes of the current negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear program. Beijing and Moscow are also marketing nuclear technology and infrastructure to other Mideast and Asian nations.
If the world is serious about shifting to low-carbon energy, nuclear energy is the most direct path. Nuclear power is the densest (in watts per square meter of land) and safest (in deaths per joule) form of energy known to man. Yet the expansion of nuclear power and other commercial applications of nuclear reactions have stalled in the West since the 1980s.
It hasn't stalled elsewhere.
Right now there are 65 nuclear reactors now under construction around the world. Almost 60% of them are in China, Russia, and India.
The United Arab Emirates is spending $30 billion to build four reactors with the help of the Korea Electric Power Corporation. The first one will come online in 2017.
Saudi Arabia is building 16 reactors at a cost of $7 billion each with the first one expected online in 2022. France is expected to build those.
Yes, the world's oil stalwart is going nuclear as well.
Yet no one is discussing this very real scenario, which is why I refer to it as a “secret pipeline” of sorts.
And what about in the U.S.?
Obama's Secret Pipeline
The U.S. is going nuclear, too... it just isn't advertised.
Nuclear already provides over 60% of our carbon-free electricity. And it's being embraced by environmentalists; it has to be.
As Bloomberg reported earlier this year:
...increasing numbers of environmentalists and climate scientists are saying nuclear must be developed quickly to slow the growth of carbon dioxide emissions.
Stewart Brand, for example, the longtime environmentalist and founder of the Whole Earth Catalog, has come out strongly in favor of nuclear. So, have Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger, the founders of the Oakland-based Breakthrough Institute, a center-left think tank.
Fourteen months ago, James Hansen, one of the world’s best known climate scientists, along with three colleagues, wrote an open letter to environmental groups encouraging them to support nuclear. Continued opposition, they wrote, “threatens humanity’s ability to avoid dangerous climate change.”
Obama himself has declared, “We must harness the power of nuclear energy on behalf of our efforts to combat climate change.”
The U.S. has 99 operable reactors (the most in the world), five under construction, and 18 planned.
All this while the president has repeatedly shut down any attempt to build the Keystone XL.
The public thinks we're undergoing a shale boom.
In reality, we're in the midst of a shale bust (which I repeatedly forecasted) and a nuclear boom that's an open secret.
Uranium has been the best-performing commodity since last summer.
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