Uranium's Epic Rally Says Lots About the World Right Now
Climate change will continue to spur demand for the metal while traders are betting on the growing risk of geopolitical disruptions to supply.
Rocks containing uranium ore sit in rail trucks.
Photographer: Martin Divisek/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Uranium offers a perfect distillation of a world that is heating up and a world order that is breaking down. Plus a market eager to capitalize on both.
The metal at the heart of zero-carbon reactors and zero-civilization warheads has so far this year beat every member of the Bloomberg Commodity Index, except orange juice, rising 68%. That jars with the sinking prospects of a US nuclear renaissance, just dealt another blow by the collapse of the leading small modular reactor project that was being developed by NuScale Power Corp. Along with the setbacks nuclear power has suffered in Europe, notably Germany’s mass shutdown, it seems puzzling that uranium prices have jumped from about $30 a pound in the summer of 2021 to more than $80 today, the highest since 2008.