Nuclear for an Irish investor

Timmaay wrote: »

https://youtu.be/QqnAKBpeHlo

Immediate flashbacks to geocities Thanks, nice summary of some miners there. Nothing that's particularly appealing for me!

Edit: actually, Centrus is on that list and I'm investigating that one further.

TimeToShine wrote: »

Any reason why you're looking at nuclear? EDF are having a nightmare with Hinkley and CGN recently pulled out of the UK. The US are building one nuclear plant in the entire country atm, Japan had a fresh scare recently with the earthquake and exposure to Chinese nuclear would be tough to come by and even they are prioritising stuff like coal and gas for flexibility.

Rolls Royce who plan on manufacturing the SMRs in the UK down the line are having a disastrous year, and the talk of hydrogen and carbon capture is finally picking up enough traction and funding to perhaps displace nuclear indefinitely. Not that I agree with it but that's the way the wind is blowing, consumers are tired of being on the hook for these projects.

Partly general contrarian-ness, partly a growing awareness of the wider context of power generation.

1) the carbon issue/global warming 2) finite supply of hydrocarbons 3) renewables alone can't be a complete power strategy due to the storage problem and the environmental cost of PV production.

Hydrogen is still very energy intensive to produce. Carbon capture will no doubt form part of the picture, but it doesn't address issues 2 & 3, barring some huge scientific/technological leaps which of course threaten the status quo in any context.

For storage, batteries have their own issues with environmental impact and finite material supplies. Mechanical storage will work for some countries but not others.

Nuclear addresses the 3 of the above to a large extent - the issue of course is what happens when it goes wrong. Safety standards have developed massively in the industry, and an increased appetite/need for nuclear could give further impetus to that.

As you say to a large extent it depends on public attitude/appetite, but I believe that the climate crisis will start to make nuclear more palatable over the next decade.

I accept that the industry is in a fairly miserable state, but that's a good thing in terms of timing if my theory turns out to be valid. I just am a bit surprised there are so few sector equities outside of the miners, who I really really don't want to go near. Very few major players, and even fewer who are publicly traded.

Centrus a smaller cap who are a bit interesting. Their balance sheet is ugly enough, but they were restructured from an ex-govt entity after Fukushima and they seem to be on the right trajectory.

Deleted User wrote: »

The ticking time bomb with nuclear power generation though is the management of waste. That is going to cost billions, if not trillions to resolve.

Are you talking about the spent fuel itself? The absolute quantity is tiny. I don't think we'll be firing it into the sun in the next 10 years, but it's not the wildest notion in the long term.

Timmaay wrote: »

Unlikely https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2019/09/20/this-is-why-we-dont-shoot-earths-garbage-into-the-sun/

Yea putting radioactive material on top of a bomb is unlikely to be a runner, at least not inside our gravity well!