Nuclear Energy Stole the Show at COP28. What Does it Mean for Investors?

[Music] Mr Bron Monroe how are you sir actually I'm pretty good Matt although it is $81 a pound so it' be a bit sad if I was anything else really wouldn't it it it would I think I think I think what are you going to do when it has 100 I don't know feel pretty much like I do at the moment because it seems to be going in that direction yeah yeah we we shall see look today we're going to talk about sort of the the momentum okay not just price but the um you know industry the infrastructure the political will um and the general understanding of nuclear I say cheaper baseload green energy so all Goods um I'm slightly biased but let's let's run with it um we should talk about that because a lot of these conversations happened at cop 28 um what can you tell us about that well the prominence of nuclear energy at cop 28 is really impressive and probably probably the best way I saw a tweet from a sort of a general green energy Watcher who I've never ever seen comment on nuclear and their headline was nuclear energy steals the show at cop 28 and we've got to remember that uh in cop 25 it wasn't even allowed in nuclear energy made its first very uh careful and shy appearance at cop 26 and then did a little bit more in cop 27 but it's really cop 28 which has increased its exposure by an order of magnitude compared to even the previous year now a lot of that of course is because of who the hosts are so the UAE in a matter of years through constructing the Bara nuclear power plant have uh decarbonized a quarter of their electricity grit so they will now be 25% nuclear power and 25% plane and they're already talking about building on that moment are they going to build more conventional nuclear power plants in the UAE are they going to uh move into SMR so they've signed several agreements at cop 28 to now start working with ksmr vendors not only on deploying into UAE but also other parts of the Middle East and there's talk about cooperating on global export programs as well so that's had a lot to do with it but it's also just a classic example of a technology whose time is absolutely cut if you think about there's a huge continued push towards uh climate abatement policy makers are now grappling with what on Earth are they going to do to try and meet some of the commitments that the politicians have made across all sorts of different markets people are engaging for the very first time on complex problems like how do you um how do you reduce the carbon and Industrial Heating and uh other very difficult to Abate areas and policy makers throughout all of these different countries and industries are having Collective o moments as they try and figure out how do they do it that's why nuclear po ESS come and it's uh it's irrefutable even if you're in Germany it's irrefutable and we're seeing a movement um from the sort of right of the center say well come on let's reverse this policy we've seen certain polls that are saying that the majority of Germans um support the idea of restarting reactors so it's time has come and for the first time at a cop conference we've seen a very well organized very well coordinated Net Zero for nuclear campaign that involves World nuclear Association the iaea all of the leaders of different organizations um we've had more than 120 companies sign up to a net zero for nuclear pledge including bamman energy we were proud to be invited to do that but the Giants are there big Prime movers of our industry are all supporting the concept but they're also there they're at cop 20 uh 28 at the moment pushing it a lot it it it it's amazing actually because and and and the one start that came out of it the one line that came out of For Me Above nuclear energy stealing the show is the fact what you've got is multiple governments actually signing up to the pledge of tripling tripling that's that's that's a that's a that's a heck of achievement tripling Global nuclear energy capacity by 2050 it s sounds like a long way away it's not it's you're going to have to have this huge infrastructure built out to uh to meet that goal you're going to have to have money move into the sector money made available cheap money made available as as as well now I think we I think there was talk like 22 companies signed up so um how how do we get more companies to more countries to sign up for this because it's it's going to need more than 22 is it it yeah and the the 22 is a fantastic start you've got a big range like uh you've got countries like for example GH signed it now it's easy for them to Triple nuclear power because they don't have it but the point is they're very seriously engaged with introducing nuclear power and the way that the pledge is phrased is it's a collective responsibility but an individual country or Nation responsibility so for Ghana they're supporting the collective responsibility which is great but then you've got the US who not only signed it but with the UK and France instigated it now that's profound because the US has always been plugged into everyone's thinking and everyone's models as a mature Market you know it might go up or down a little bit but essentially it's going to straddle the 100 gaw capacity for nuclear power within the us at best and it's dropped below that with reactors being turned off so now they're talking about 200 gaw of additional nuclear capacity in the US Alone by 2050 and there's been announcements that the US has made as well that hang off that they know they know that they're going to have to really solidly stimulate and support the SMR Market to be able to do that and they've announced XM Bank support for export programs and other supportive measures to get those SMR going quickly and in many different different aspects of their society and their industrial complex but that's huge then you've got France now we know that they've been supportive of increasing their nuclear Fleet they've recently done something of a back flip under macron's leadership but now they're going to Triple you know they've got 66 GW that they're going to Triple uh you've got countries like Sweden who recently announced they want to uh increase their nuclear Fleet by 10 convention your nuclear reactors and they want to supplement that with smis as well so they're on the path to tripling already but it really bakes in that intent it's a profound it's enormous it really will make a massive difference and the the signatur who's missing is China but they're doing it anyway they're more than tripling by 2050 so they don't even need to be on the on the pledge to your question about well you know who else is is going to join do we need more countries what I feel and I think and I certainly hope we're witnessing with cop 28 is a Tipping Point in several aspects of social acceptance of nuclear power and a an emotional Tipping Point is so much more powerful than a technical Tipping Point and the reason is that you know if you look at a technical Tipping Point uh the whole concept of a Tipping Point is that's that final step changing technology that enables a whole lot of things to happen but generally that happens very slowly emotional tipping points can happen in the blink of an eye and collectively we're having an emotional Tipping Point at a political level right now the knowledge that most of these politicians had this month was no different to what they had 6 months ago and probably no different to what they had a year ago what has changed is they've sensed that the political landscape now rewards them being on the front foot with nuclear and then being on the front foot promoting nuclear power and within a month 22 countries have formed that view now that will continue to snowball there will be more and more countries saying you know if we're not seen to be leaders on this we're going to risk handing the initiative to our political veries and we don't want to do that and it's countries that are you know right of Center governments left of center governments the whole Gambit this is in a collective sense of bipartisan issue now industry is cheering it on um as we'll talk about there's a variety of different um industrial progress positions being made on nuclear power and collectively I think what this is going to do is it's going to create a profound difference in the way that nuclear Energy's talked about at a societal and a political level and that then becomes an enabler for all of those positive attributes that we've been talking about that are well understood that are scientifically proven to now play their role so it's a it's a little bit early to tell I'd like to see how cop 28 finishes I'd like to see how the mainstream media handles a lot of these factors but what I'm certainly gunning for is that this will be remembered as a Tipping Point where suddenly nuclear power is Unleashed to play the vital positive role that it needs to in number one mitigating carbon output secondly decarbonizing industry and thirdly doing it in a way that doesn't go rot positive economic and social progress that's being made around the globe and look and I think and you well said um understood but you haven't mentioned so far the seoro 5 now sounds like a Quinton Tarantino movie it's it's not guys it's it's one of the big biggest names in in in you coming countries coming together and actually committing to increas well allocating Capital to uranium enrichment and conversion so what can you tell us there so um careful and uh sort of religious Watchers of the energy show would remember that we talked about the 5 G8 Nations now that would have been back in April I think is when that all happened so the G8 occurred in Japan in Soro and five of those G8 Nations created something of a pledge that they would work to uh support essentially non-russian nuclear fuel cycle development and investment now at the time there was a bit of skepticism because it's easy to write a piece of paper but uh it was days later that I was in the ha attending the world nuclear fuel cycle conference and I had the chance to have some really long conversations with W's director General Salah bbal ilon who stepped me through you know what had been involved in all of these late night discussions and the uh input and the um influence that world nuclear Association had in being able to shape it in the right way and so I came away from that having a feeling that this was something really substantial and now the Tarantino seoro 5 as you've now forever called them that now they're starting to put their money where their mouth is they're starting to deliver on the next phase of this intent which involves funding it involves concrete steps towards increasing the conversion and enrichment capacity uh outside of Russia and impliedly outside of China not they're an issue at the moment but the idea is that they want to ensure that the civilian nuclear world in the west never again is subject to energy manipulation through the nuclear fuel cycle now why is that good well for investors in the uranium sector it's fantastic partly because they're talking a tight time frame 3 years so they want to really throw regulatory support and money and intergovernmental support at unlocking the conversion bottleneck that we've got at the moment in the sector and trying to build enrichment capacity that enables a lot more uranium to be processed to meet the various growth requirements that this tripling of nuclear power is going to create it unlocks the conversion bottleneck in the short term to enable overfeeding to address some of the enrichment constraints and in simple terms it's a great thing for Uranium because it's opening up the funnel through which mines like bamman a Tango mine will be able to push uranium through you know what I I think the other thing we need to remember this is this is the um cop 208 it's the UN climate change conference right um this year hosted um by the UA UAE and and I I was listening to some of the conversations um on stage of sulan aljabar the the guy who was kind of running the show there I think there was a slight um element of distraction over you know the fact that he said yeah we are having conversations with uh other groups to go to you know o oil oil contracts too and obviously fossil fuel is is is not derer uh at the moment but so rather than sort of climate change I I wonder if this is a climate transition period that that we're in obviously nuclear sto the show but it's not going to do it overnight and as we've you know outlined the support fire we're talking about putting funding in place to you know help with you know enrichment conversion and stuff but it's not going to happen overnight um so it' be interesting to see at cop 29 how that conversation evolves and changes and I think they're going to announce the the hosts at some point in December for for for that um right we better bounce on to some company news uh and the the Aussies are killing it at the moment so boss energy what can you tell us so great move by boss they raised $ 205 million Aussie dollars the raising and the trading hot went out for the purposes of an acquisition so that of course got everyone buzzing here on Monday and Tuesday Tuesday in fact so what they've now announced is first of all they successfully did the raising and it was very very well supported there is a lot of appetite for Quality uranium stories out there at the moment no question about that but moreover they announced what the acquisition was which is a 30% project interest in the Alesa uranium mine which very much like boss's honeymoon project in South Australia is coming back online in Texas uh the it's oncore who will retain the 70% joint venture interest makes a lot of sense boss will have not only a operating interest in the joint venture or or a project interest in the joint venture but they'll have the off take for that so that'll be their uranium to sell so it gives them a good foothold into you direct us uranium sales it's an ISR mine coming back onto back online so it's got a lot of synergies with what boss has got in honeymoon so good move good for Encore they're putting in $10 million into encore's coffers corporately at at the same time so they'll have a few shares in oncore and I think it's a really wellth thought out well constructed deal as you would expect from the management at Bost absolutely absolutely um friend friend of the show and friend of ours um and then and I think the other smart thing is like whilst the stock is high you know whilst whilst the going is is good raise the capital um you know look at where they were 18 months ago right uh so I think good good deal good for Encore um as well I I would I would say after their purchase um or alterator from energy fuel so and and good for the sector well kid now um the other the other good guys in all of this is spit um they've been active yeah they've finally started to turn the tap on a little bit they acquired uh2 200,000 last week and then overnight they've just acquired another £ 256,000 so we haven't seen these levels in many months and if if we're lucky and what what I'd hope is that we see them start to trade more consistently na AV positive and it'd be really good to see them back at this sort of a run rate a bit more consistently that's something that uranium investors will see as a very tangible Catalyst for not only the uranium price but for Equity so one to really watch closely where do they go from here but tell me this there's unusual numbers involv so like 200 plus 256 but is this them s of sort of scraping the bottom of the barrel is that can we be hopeful uh well in a sense it is and in a sense It Isn't So at most of the spot uranium that's traded in the world is traded essentially either through US markets or through US conventions and the US convention is million pounds or thousands of pounds of u308 and so typically what we see as spit buyers 100,000 u308 200,000 u308 now occasionally You'll See Spot Market trades in tons uranium that's uranium metal without the oxygen attached to it so whilst 256,000 might sound like a weird number where they're looking under every little corner scraping New Year th000 pounds here and 1,000 pounds there actually that just translates to 100 ton of contained uranium metal so what it does mean is that they're looking everywhere and they're they're dealing with a counterparty who owns or owns the uranium in a denomination of hundreds of tons uranium contained uh which is not the US market and tends in the spot Market not to be the European market as well so it does mean that they're looking everywhere they can to find the material and that's consistent with what we know about the tightness of the spot Market okay interesting okay that that that clears that up I appreciate that and we're going to S jump back to kind of format which we are have been doing for the you know past few months which uh and I'm going to kick off with uh winner of the week who are you allocating that to that's for BHP the big Australian okay okay now they haven't really won anything as such but I just want to shout out to them because they've now talked publicly about looking to deploy smrs or micro reactors in their saskat and pish operation big poach M BHP has a big presence in sasot fan haven't had a presence in uranium so far although people are really watching for that and with Canada having such a big push now towards smrs it's really important that such a big Global minor is open about their aspirations to use micro reactors on their mind sites where they can and particularly for potash and other mines where it it's not just about the electricity you use to Mill and grind and operate a processing circuit um many of these metals and other minerals they require power for heating and geochemical processes and so on so it's um it's important that they find a decarbonized solution to that and micro reactors just make so much sense it's interesting because uh we dialed in from the global uranium conference in Adela a couple of weeks ago and there were a couple of people from BHP who were at the conference with the sole reason of reporting back to their technical improvements division on the current status of smrs and micro reactors so I had a really good chat with them and it's entirely consistent with this latest publicity around or latest media report around vhp are actively looking to consider all options including nuclear power a chat yesterday with a guy from n Sky Consulting um talk talking about smrs or or or micro reactors and mobile reactors and you know where the responsibility would lie in terms of you know getting permission to do that because not not every Province State country is going to be happy about some random company using you know nuclear power uh um so the project we need to be big enough um and perhaps there needs to be a bit of time for people to kind of get used to it as a as a as a safe safe me demonstrate that kind of s safe medium um at that in the in the world of mining so there's probably not too many projects and obviously P PHP potentially he identified one but maybe further down the line there will be there will be um let us talk we love winners of the week we also love bungal of the week so where where's the bungle of the week being allocated I'm going to be a little bit playful this week if that's all right Matt because we couldn't really find anything that you anyone's done particularly badly even the policy makers have be Hing themselves right now Germany's wise enough to keep its head down on nuclear when the rest of the world is realizing it's the answer so the bundle of the week I'm uh I'm borrowing from a tweet that hopefully we can put up on the screen here showing a a bear in tears and so the bundle of week tongue and cheek is being awarded to all of those Bears who particularly over the last several months have been trying to talk the market down not in a constructive sense I'm not talking about people who are always trying to prize open the weaknesses in a in a theory or the weaknesses in a setup that's important it's important that investors are constantly asking themselves where could my thesis go wrong what could disrupt my thesis if that happens how do I react that's not what I'm talking about I'm talking about the incessant Bears who have far-flung theories or poorly thought through risks who say that you know there's a billion pounds to be mined in Sweden that type of thing which for people who really understand the industry know that that's uh not a threat at all so for them I'm awarding the collective bungle and we did a little bit of work and we realized the last time we awarded the bungle of the week was on 18 or 19 October and in that time when the Bears were still looking for reasons to believe the Uranian price was coming back down again the Uranian price was at $69 a pound so in seven weeks it's gone up another 177% which makes me cocky enough to to tongue and cheek award the bungle to all of those Bears I think they might have to have a good hard look at themselves now and I'm sure they'll take it in in the tongue and Chic uh way that you meant it um look yeah the the want want to talk about um one of Canada's finest um which is the the the and we I know we joke about this but they they can't the can do attitude uh here so the question is what is the role of the candy Monarch reactor um and what are the advantages of it will it be a winner of the week in the future okay so we're referring to some the can do technology has been around for a long time but I think this question refers to some recent media around the development of a, megawatt candu reactor um called the Monarch and why that might be a good thing to have constructed around the world and developed and exported so let's take a couple of steps back the K do was a Canadian developed technology that are generally a lot smaller than conventional boiling water or pressurized water reactors so instead of being roughly 1,000 gaw they tend to be roughly 400 to 500 megawatt sorry 1,000 megawatt versus 4 to 500 Mega um now what makes them really different and very effective is they don't rely on enriched fuel so they're not powered by uranium that's been through the whole nuclear fuel cycle to come out at being say 4.95% uranium 235 they run on naturally occurring uranium which is 71% uranium 235 that's then just converted into an oxide now that gives them a lot of flexibility it means that their time is now when the world's really fretting about enrichment availability and conversion availability as in conversion into uf6 uh it's great to have can reactors and Canada is certainly benefiting a lot from that right now the other place where they're very prominent is is in a version of a cando do reactor has um been uh developed co-opted in India and so that's important for India because they can't access the nuclear fuel cycle easily because they're not a signatory neither are they Arch Enemy Pakistan to the nonproliferation treaty so the indigenous reactors in India are can do reactors and that also enables them to to avoid getting caught up in the requirements for conversion to uf6 and enrichment so that's the can do reactor now why is it interesting and important that we now see much larger gigawatt scale C do reactors I think it's got its most relevant application in countries that are nuclear newcomers that have got uranium minds or the potential for Uranium Minds in the future because their ability to use their own natural resources that are inside their own borders to produce nuclear power is a lot more viable if the only step they need to create industrial is to take yellow cake and turn it into a U2 oxide that can then be put into a kandu reactor so it's a very useful tool to have in the overall toolbox the overall baseload clean energy reliable 24/7 nuclear powered toolbox and it will particular suit newcoming Nations or existing countries that have got their own uranium and this all comes in the context of the big theme of the day being energy security it's a dramatically enhanced form of energy security it's also a race to the Finishing Line because the Russians are out there selling their technology the Chinese are out selling their technology we've talked about this at norum um as to the kind of geopolitical influence of that then gives them so it'll be interesting so see how this technology spreads its wings uh what the take up is and What new technologies especially when when we're talking about smrs we were earlier um and you know and how that provides that kind of energy security that people what countries are looking for at the moment um tweet of the week is has always been a favorite of mine and I like the I like the one that you selected this week because it's it's full of facts it disables any myths around um uh nuca uh beautifully I I think so who are we awarding that to we've departed from the usual practice of finding a cute meme or something that's very visual we've had lots of graphs for example or charts on this segment uh we're going for something very cerebral to Mark the occasion of people thinking for a change at cop 28 so it's Brian git and he's put this fabulous tweet which we'll have in the link in the show notes and have it up while screen that's basically nuclear power MythBusters what's particularly good is if you follow the thread on each of those facts he's then got the backup for it and that's what makes it useful there's a great saying that says um if you debate if you debate on opinions you can only answer it on opinions in other words if you assert something without facts then to challenge that you don't need facts and what Brian's done is he's taken assertions that are myths he's challenged them with facts and then laid all of the facts out for everyone to read and access so Brian by the way uh works for one of the major SMR developers he teachs his Twitter profile fairly uh personal in the sense that he doesn't attach to the company because that enables him to really speak his mind and he's a very good follow if you're wanting both sides of the but both sides of the argument on clean energy in particular Renewables and intermittence and storage and nuclear and so on very good follow for someone who wants to have their thought process challenged uh he can be quite provocative and I certainly enjoy that but it's a it's not for the faint of hearted if you're still opening your eyes Edge morning hoping to see rainbows and unicorns Well I this this fact-based discussion might just catch on I think after the last three years I I had my doubts it's more about feelings than anything else but do go and uh sign up to uh Brian git um which is at Brian git 2ts uh on X forly known as Twitter uh and then finally finally the this is one which has always been always been a little bit of fun um moonshots and fizzers of the week moonshot and fizzers from one of the industry leaders so EDF they are the government owned utility that operates the fleet of reactors in France well they've now put out a green bond for nuclear 500 million euros uh to do some work on one of their reactors we followed the slow pace of change in the way that the EU has regarded nuclear energy for many years and it was a couple of years ago when the big step forward was that nuclear power was finally recognized in a transitional sense but nonetheless recognized within the eu's green taxonomy which in theory was then going to open certain financings associated with nuclear power for green bonds and other easy to come by green money so EDF are now testing that of course it qualifies what they're really testing is how deep is the investor appetite for it one of the sort of terms they can get the timing could couldn't be better for all of the reasons we've talked about what I'm really hoping is that this becomes a moonshot because we see an avalanche of investors who are green money to deploy who also don't mind a few facts in their analysis of the situation and demonstrate to EDF and all of the other nuclear um utilities and developers in the EU that this is a highly viable source of funding and we need to remember for everyone outse there that nuclear energy is capital intensive it's Capital intensive up front major refurbishments take a lot of capital the running costs are very low compared to other forms of energy so any impact that you can have on reducing the cost of capital has a very large impact on the ultimate cost of the electricity that's produced by nucle power so this is a big deal it does certainly have the potential to be a moonot I hope it's not a fizzer we will know very soon I think in the current climate that'll be unlikely but it's one to watch to see if it is indeed a moon off youself well we are looking forward to all the news that's coming out to the end of this year and uh very excited about 2024 at price of uranium um let let's see if we can get that magic 100 and q1 we shall see um Brandon good speak to you as always um we'll see you soon seen hopefully thanks Matt exciting times could your eyes open they glued to the uranium screen

Channel: Crux Investor

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Keywords: mining, gold, nickel, cobalt, uranium, vanadium, lithium, precious metals, crux investor, cruxinvestor, silver, TSX, ASX, AIM, LSE, investing in uranium, investing in mining, investing in stocks, investing in stocks for beginners, investing in gold, invest in stocks, invest in stocks for beginners, invest in gold, invest in mining, analyst's notes, analysts notes, analyst notes, battery metals, electric vehicles, net zero, carbon neutral, carbon credits, nuclear, best mining stocks, TSXV

Id: dS3qOPQWL9c

Length: 34min 35sec (2075 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 08 2023