April 27, 2026

The U.S. power sector stands at a critical inflection point. With AI and data center demand driving unprecedented electricity needs and the need to transition to clean energy to protect the climate, nuclear energy has emerged from decades of dormancy and under-investment to become one of the most compelling investment themes of 2026.

The Nuclear Renaissance

Projected U.S. utility capital expenditures through 2030 have surged to $1.4 trillion, a 21% increase from prior estimates, as the industry races to modernize the grid and add firm capacity. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), enacted in July 2025, has fundamentally altered the landscape by providing nuclear energy with enhanced protections and extended tax incentives through 2033. Additionally, the Department of Energy and the NRC are beginning to work together to augment and accelerate review, testing and certification processes, which now promise to provide businesses with a risk-reduced pathway to commercialization. For investors, the nuclear renaissance presents extraordinary opportunities—exposure to a potential $2.2  to $3 trillion global investment cycle through 2050. While there remain technical complexities to building next-generation nuclear fission, many of the advanced designs with be fabricated in factories with high quality assurance programs so as to more rapidly scale production. In the case of fission, in fact the technologies are nearly all proven (unlike with fusion, which has never yet been proven to work at scale), what remains to be done now is scaling commercial designs with factory set-ups for mass production and progress towards quantity-related cost reductions. Even the regulatory review and approval timelines have been updated to provide for certification of factory processes.

The Demand Catalyst

Bank of America, McKinsey and Goldman Sachs project that AI-driven data center demand will cause electricity consumption to rise by as much as 175% by 2030. This is not incremental growth; it is a structural break from decades of nominal energy demand growth. Major technology firms trying to secure energy for their data centers are now bypassing traditional energy utility queues to secure “firm” power directly. Examples since 2024 include:

  • Microsoft signed a 20-year, 100% power purchase agreement with Constellation Energy to restart the 835 MW Unit 1 at Three Mile Island, which was shut down in 2019 simply due to poor economics at that time. The collaboration provides Constellation with an above market price per kilowatt of power and calls for renaming Three Mile Island the Crane Clean Energy Center.
  • Google partnered with Kairos Power to deploy a fleet of advanced modular reactors totaling 500 MWe by 2035. Not only does this agreement reflect the competitive nature of the demand for nuclear power—since this is an agreement to purchase power from reactors that have not yet been built—it provides financeable support to Kairos to build multiple units, which will enable Kairos to move from first-of-a-kind (FOAK) pricing to nth-of-a-kind (NOAK) pricing, helping Kairos achieve unit cost-economies through quantity production.
  • Amazon is investing in Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) through partnerships with X-energy, Energy Northwest and Dominion Energy to deploy an estimated 5 GW of nuclear capacity by 2039.
  • Meta has also partnered with X-energy to provide it with SMRs to be sited at a number of its data centers across the country.
  • Multiple other buyers including data center developers like Crusoe, the DoW, the Air Force and others have place quantity orders with a range of other advanced nuclear developers including privately-held ventures like Radiant, Aalo, Antares and Blue Energy.

Unlike gas, which is highly carbon emitting, or renewables like wind and solar which are highly intermittent, nuclear energy provides the 24/7/52 around the clock (“five-nines”) reliability that data centers require. The demand for nuclear is supported by Trump Administration policies, as the OBBBA maintains crucial Biden-era IRA tax incentives—including the 45Y (Production Tax Credit), 48E (Investment Tax Credit), and (Zero-Emission Credit)—even while it curtails ongoing federal support for wind and solar projects that do not commence construction by July 2026 or enter service by 2027. 

Investment Landscape

Tiemann Investment Advisors has been following the trends in energy for nearly 15 years and has helped our clients gain from the clear trend away from fossil fuels and towards sources of clean energy, including nuclear power.  In general, the nuclear universe offers multiple entry points across the value chain although not all candidates fit within the Energy Sector specifically, nevertheless, investors can safely divest fossil fuel holdings and deploy a diverse energy portfolio that can be built through a variety of the following public equities or, alternatively, through private equity vehicles:

  • Utilities: 
    • Constellation Energy the leading U.S. nuclear operator with the largest fleet of nuclear power plants in the United States, consisting of 23 gigawatts (GW) of power from 21 reactors across 12 power plant sites. These plants include Braidwood, Byron, Calvert Cliffs, Clinton, Dresden, FitzPatrick, LaSalle, Limerick, Nine Mile Point, Peach Bottom, Quad Cities, and Salem (as a minority owner), located in Illinois, New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, provide over 19,000 megawatts of electric capacity, generating about 20% of the nation’s total electricity.
    • Southern Company operates eight nuclear power reactors across three sites in Alabama and Georgia. These include Plant Vogtle (4 units), Plant Farley (2 units), and Plant Hatch (2 units), providing over 8,200 MW of capacity. Vogtle Units 3 & 4 are the first newly constructed Gen III units in the U.S., utilizing the new AP1000 design from Westinghouse and the first new nuclear reactors built in the last 30 years.
    • American Electric Power< (the nation’s largest transmission owner) owns and operates two nuclear reactors, which are located at the Donald C. Cook Nuclear Plant in Bridgman, Michigan. These two units, operated by their subsidiary Indiana Michigan Power, have a combined capacity of approximately 2,296 megawatts and make up a significant portion of AEP’s non-emitting generation portfolio.
  • Supply Chain: 
    • Cameco Corporation (CCJ): is the world’s largest publicly traded uranium producer based in Canada and a 50% owner of Westinghouse, the developer of the AP 1000.
    • Sprott Physical Uranium Trust provides direct commodity exposure to uranium.
    • GE Vernova a leading SMR developer, selling and building nuclear through its GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) subsidiary, is primarily focused on deploying its BWRX-300, a 300 MWe small modular reactor (SMR) designed for faster, more economical construction. Key projects include constructing the first unit at Ontario Power Generation’s Darlington site (expected by 2030), and planned deployments in the U.S. (Tennessee Valley Authority at Clinch River Alabama), Poland via Synthos Green Energy and conducting studies for various Southeast Asian countries.
  • Nuclear Developers and Providers: 
    • BWX Technologies, Inc. (BWXT): which manufactures nuclear components, nuclear fuel, and designs advanced nuclear reactors (SMRs) for both commercial and government/military use.
    • Centrus Energy Corp. (LEU): Supplies nuclear fuel and services, including uranium enrichment technology.
    • Mirion Technologies Inc. (MIR): Provides radiation detection, measurement, and monitoring products critical for nuclear safety and operations.
    • NuScale Power (SMR): Has developed and designed the first Gen III+ small modular reactor (SMR) technology, which is a 50MW or 77MW light water reactor design that can be built in a series of up to 12 units together (the VOYGR plants).
    • Lightbridge Corporation (LTBR): Develops next-generation nuclear fuel technologies for existing and future reactors.
    • NexGen Energy Ltd. (NXE): Is developing a new high-grade uranium minining project in Canada.

Private Equity: The Venture Capital Advantage

While public equities provide stability and steady growth, there’s been more explosive growth seen in the enthusiasm for the nuclear renaissance among developing and emerging ventures occurring within the private sector. For investors seeking to both capture the “alpha” of this transition and to invest their dollars where the impact of incremental capital can have the greatest benefit, investors should considering opportunities to invest into advanced nuclear through venture capital. Tiemann Investment Advisors recognized the growth potential of this sector a long time ago. Between 2014 and 2018, we researched the sector seeking out ways to cost-effectively invest. When we found there were no vehicles available enabling RIAs to provide investors with access, we devoted a few years to developing such a vehicle and, in 2020, we spun out Nucleation Capital.

Nucleation Capital is the first low-minimum, low-cost venture fund that allows accredited investors to place early, cost-effective stakes into private ventures innovating next-generation technologies. The fund builds diversified portfolios of ventures across a range of technologies—such as molten salt reactors, lead-cooled reactors, mobile micro-reactors and fusion reactors—before they reach the public markets. In doing so, the fund provides for direct alpha in a risk-reduced vehicle.

Now, after five years of investing into the advanced nuclear sector, Nucleation Capital is seen as the leading venture fund focused primarily on advanced nuclear and related deep-tech climate solutions. The fund utilizes a non-traditional open-end fund structure and online venture fintech platform that allows it to accept new investors each quarter with quarterly subscriptions starting as low as $5,000 per quarter and extending up to $500,000 per quarter for four, eight or twelve quarters.

Thus, investors seeking to allocate between $60,000 and $6 million over a three year period, will find participation in Nucleation’s Fund I a suitable match.  For those seeking allocations greater than $6 million, Nucleation’s upcoming Fund II is the better option. By investing through a specialized, boutique fund like Nucleation, investors gain diversified exposure to the private and innovative companies that could become the “Constellations” of the next decade.

The magnitude of this opportunity makes nuclear one of the most compelling themes of the 21st century. Winners will be those who positioned themselves early, diversifies across the capital stack, and maintained conviction through the volatility of a generational energy shift.

Forward Projections & Risks

  • Near-Term (2025–2030): Global nuclear generation is expected to reach all-time highs in 2026, from both existing, restarted and newly completed plants. There are currently over 75 reactors under construction worldwide, with more planned. China is on track to build most of the projected new units and may being operating a 110 GW fleet by 2030, potentially becoming the world’s largest nuclear producer as a result, surpassing the U.S. unless we increase our construction activity quickly. The Biden Administration pledged to triple U.S. nuclear production and helped organize a global initiative that saw more than thirty countries agree to a tripling of nuclear power in 2022. Then the Trump Administration committed the U.S. to quadruple its nuclear production and issued four Executive Orders that supported the DOE and the NRC accelerating new design and construction permits.

  • Medium-Term (2030–2040): SMR deployment involves not just first-of-a-kind deployments but also manufacturing of units in factories. Thus, rather than building new power plants as bespoke projects, advanced reactors will roll over production lines and be delivered to sites where they will be erected wtihin relatively short periods through standard construction processes.  Thus, nuclear growth, powered by numerous designs that offer energy buyers various sizes, configurations and features to best suit their needs, will be able to scale more rapidly and is projected to reach 80 GW of potential capacity as “N-th of a kind” costs decline toward target levels of $4,500-$3,000/kW in the U.S. and Europe.

  • Long-Term (2040–2050):The world is on the verge of dramatically missing the 50% decarbonization target set and agreed to by numerous COPs, aided by the Trump Administration’s ignorance of climate science and disparagement of the scientific consensus that decarbonization is of vital importance for stabilizing global temperatures. Thus, to meet Net Zero goals, the global order must work doubly hard to achieve nearly all decarbonization of energy between 2028 and 2050, which can realistically happen so long as global nuclear capacity expands from approximately 425 GW of nuclear energy used today to almost 1200 GW by 2050.  It is estimated the this energy transition will be feasible in that time frame, thanks to advanced nuclear designs, and advanced manufacturing technologies but it will require a cumulative investment of between $2.2 and $3 trillion.

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