Clay Montgomery

Summary of the energy-related conferences that I plan to attend this year. I particularly recommend Enverus Evolve (oil/gas) and the TNA Summit, which are also the lowest cost. January 20-22 PowerGen - San Antonio, TX powergen.com May 4-6 Enverus Evolve - Houston, TX enverus.com/evolve-2026/ May 11-12 Reuters SMR & Advanced Reactors - Austin, TX events.reutersevents.com/nuclear/smr-us… May 31-2 World Nuclear Fuel Market - Scottsdale, AZ wnfm.com/meetings/wnfm-… August 4-5 Nuclear Opportunities Workshop - Knoxville, TN eteconline.org/now/ August 24–27 NEI/ANS NECX - Dallas, TX nuclearenergyconference.org September ? Texas Nuclear Alliance Summit - Austin, TX nucleartexas.com October 18-21 NEI Uranium Fuel Seminar - Houston, TX nei.org/conferences/ November 9-11 Fertilizer Institute Market & Logistics - Atlanta, GA tfi.org/event/market-a…

Remember when we used to create tutorial programs to show how new software algorithm concepts work called "Hello World" programs? The idea was simple, condense example code down to the most minimal form that still demonstrates the new concept, so that learners don't get distracted by implementation details. One of my favorite YouTubers, Dave Plumber (who created the Task Manager for Windows 95) has created a sort of Hello World program for the foundational AI concept called "Transformers". Maybe this is only cool for me (because I took a pdp-11 assembly programming class in 1983 and actually liked it), but implementing Transformers on a 6 MHz DEC VAX minicomputer with only 64K of RAM, brilliantly guarantees there is no superfluous complexity and the instructor stays focused. This is not only nostalgic, but Dave gives a great and concise explanation of how Transformers actually work, with not-so-subtle reminders that these algorithms are really not so new or magical. AI still has real fundamental limitations no matter how much it is scaled up or used as an excuse for layoffs. #aipower #AI youtu.be/OUE3FSIk46g

They need some future source of huge power growth to point to that supports the AI boom thesis. Otherwise, that falls apart. Nuclear power is a good source to grift about because most investors know so little about the current situation and there's been so much positive news lately.

@UnoMasReactor Where do they get these numbers from? Straight out of their ass? The US is not going to build 150 GW of new nuclear by 2050. The economic case doesn’t exist, and if it did, that deployment rate would require us to smash historical records starting from an industrial standstill.

Morgan Stanley on the Nuclear Renaissance: "We estimate the nuclear renaissance will be worth $2.2 trillion through 2050, up from $1.5 trillion projected last year, in the form of capital investment in new global nuclear capacity. This is based on an assumption that there will be 586.5GW of new nuclear capacity to be added globally, which is ~47% more than the current global nuclear capacity of 398GW. The growth will be led by China (~270GW) and the US (~150GW). China, the US, CEEMEA, and India will likely lead the rise in global nuclear capacity. With Asia emerging as the center of nuclear capacity growth, the region presents a number of opportunities for investors."

Yes, me too. But they are both meme stocks now and too volatile to hold long or short. Both are opaque and require significant time to understand. The foot dragging completely contradicts Secretary Wright 's recent statements. I think there is probably a lot more EUP inventory undisclosed. We know the DOE has all the inventory numbers for the entire commercial fleet.

@ClayDMontgomery @stocktalkweekly We owned both companies when no one wanted them. They are now both very expensive and are now minor positions after profits taken. That said, I note the foot dragging in going full force and building this Piketon facility.

Centrus Energy $LEU reiterated at 'Outperform' at Evercore ISI, with a $390 price-target Analyst Nicholas Amicucci comments on their new Palantir $PLTR partnership: "Earlier this morning, Centrus continued it partnership announcement momentum as it announced a landmark strategic partnership with Palantir to deploy AI-driven software across its multibillion-dollar Piketon enrichment expansion, with early work already identifying nearly $300MM in potential cost savings since the recent agreement was signed in January, which is importantly is only “the tip of the iceberg.” This followed the announcement of its EPC arrangement with Flour showcasing the companies continued “best-in-class” partnership initiative, which could also be complemented by the potential partnership with Oklo, and provides the company with an even stronger political capital “war chest” in our opinion. From an investment perspective, this development is a rather significant incrementally positive to our long-term thesis. First, identifying ~$300MM of efficiencies at this early stage materially supports our view that disciplined project execution can protect returns through the buildout cycle, particularly as Centrus moves toward commercialscale deployment. Second, the use of advanced analytics across project controls and manufacturing execution meaningfully reduces construction, schedule, and cost-overrun risk, which are all key toggle items that can have significant impacts around cascade timing and the capital intensity to achieve “Nth” of-a-kind Cascade builds. Third, accelerating timelines for bringing new enrichment capacity online enhances Centrus’ ability to capture tightening SWU market fundamentals, especially against the backdrop of Russian supply constraints and rising Western demand. Under the agreement, Centrus will leverage Palantir’s Foundry and AIP platforms to integrate systems across classified and unclassified environments and optimize project controls, engineering, manufacturing execution, supply chain management, and regulatory compliance as it scales commercial enrichment capacity. We reiterate our Outperform rating."

The relationship between the DOE and Centrus is nuanced and complicated and I don't like how Centrus management never bothers to explain it. But, Centrus currently operates the cascade because they won the DOE contract to do so. But, that contract was also bid by BWXT. So, if BWXT had won, they would be operating Centrus' cascade? BWXT is also involved in manufacturing some of the components. And I think much of the IP is shared between DOE/Centrus/BWXT, also.

Not exactly accurate. Piketon facility is owned by DoE , but the centrifuges and other critical assets are owned by LEU. If the full cascade is built, that is a big if, the HALEU produced will be sold at commercial rates and LEU will profit. I get the annoying and suspicious MOUs in this space…very little money has changed hands so far. I think LEU is one of the few that is closer to actually accomplishing something.

@UnoMasReactor The other possibility, is that onshore inventories of EUP are really so huge that US utilities have more time to build enrichment infrastructure than we think.

@ClayDMontgomery I was a little confused too. I think the current effort for urenco is to expand by 0.7 million SWU. Russian supply to the US is roughly 3-4 million SWU Not sure exactly what he’s talking about

I found the commentary provided by Secretary Wright regarding the cutting off of Russian enriched uranium imports 🔗 to video below He states the Urenco facility in New Mexico is what will make it happen through completion of their capacity expansion project by 2028

@DrPaulyDeSantis @UnoMasReactor It might be believable if some uranium enrichment capacity was actually being built somewhere in the US. You believe 10,000 centrifuges will be built in 2 years? It's not happening.

@ClayDMontgomery @UnoMasReactor Per the video he just said they will comply with the congressional Mandate in the video

@DrPaulyDeSantis @UnoMasReactor Restore? Imports of EUP from Russia have accelerated since the Ukraine war started. So, somehow, the politically unacceptable and toxic dependency continues to be tolerated. The DOE secretary already has the authority to waive the ban in 2028.

@ClayDMontgomery @UnoMasReactor Never forget the hundreds of thousands of war crimes Russia has committed so far in Ukraine. It will never politically acceptable or palatable to restore that toxic dependency on Russia.

@23Truthbetold @MarioNawfal Big tech shareholders, including almost everyone with their 401k or IRA invested in a stock index fund.

@MarioNawfal So the AI giants can’t wait for the grid they’re just making their own power plants now. When innovation outgrows infrastructure, the real question is: who’s footing the bill for all this electricity? ⚡💻

🚨 Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, xAI, Oracle and OpenAI are all going to the White House in March. They're signing a deal that lets them build their own private power plants for AI data centers. The U.S. national grid can't handle what they're building. So they're becoming their own electric companies.

@whatisnuclear @Dragonmaurizio Thanks for clarifying this. Here's the bonus question, what level of enrichment does their reactor require? I ask this every time I see someone from Terrapower and I've never gotten a real answer. It's as if they haven't decided that yet.

FYI, Natrium is a liquid metal sodium-cooled fast-neutron reactor, not a molten salt reactor. TerraPower has had a molten salt MCFR program for a long time as a totally separate project, with a small reactor experiment in the works in Idaho. Impossibly confusingly, Natrium does pass its heat to a non-nuclear thermal energy storage system that does use molten salt to store heat.

☢️ Futuristic nuclear power plant. The TerraPower Natrium Nuclear project (currently underway in Kemmerer Wyoming), claims to be the most innovative nuclear to renewable plant ever conceived. The reactor, a Molten Chloride Fast Reactor will be operating at low pressure regime, integrated with a passive liquid sodium medium working as both fuel & coolant. The unit will be capable of generating 345 MW of electrical power. The plant will be divided into two areas, the site with the reactor, and the energy storage section where thermal power transferred by the molten salt system will be preserved for 5 hours like a massive battery to boost the grid at peak hours with 500 MW of electricity. How it’s presented the project has a highly sensational tone and strong narrative-driven, looking more like a boondoggle or a clickbait than objective facts. 🔗 terrapower.com

Jerry Seinfeld once did a bit that went something like, "You're sitting in an air-conditioned cabin, sipping a cocktail of your choice with a stewardess who will bring you another one, WIFI surfing the internet, traveling at 700 MPH and 30,000 feet over mountains to the next city you want to go, and you're going to complain?"

The next time your flight gets delayed, don’t complain. You are one of the lucky people who get to travel on an airplane.

@BranderYuri @jmuelle99 Do wars ever end with both sides on the same page? We have our own war going on within the US government that probably gets no press in Europe. But, Trump has fired huge swaths of the US State Department and CIA, which played major roles in initiating and funding the war.

@ClayDMontgomery @jmuelle99 That's not the Russians problem nor is that relevant to the Ukrainians. I have no doubt the Americans will continue to give waivers but an agreement in Ukraine isn't just up to the US and both sides are not even remotely close to being on the same page.

According to Bloomberg and India Times, a high-level memo has been leaked from an internal Russian document which details 7 points where Russian and US economic interests could converge following a deal to end the war in Ukraine. The memo mentions nuclear energy and raw materials, specifically. This memo could be bad news for uranium stocks this week, if Wall Street takes notice. Even though the word "uranium" is not there yet, I think that will soon become apparent. Pressure from nuclear utilities is increasing to re-normalize relations, to continue the pre-Ukraine war "good ole days" of $30/lb uranium, given the current circumstances of a looming ban on imports and very little progress in rebuilding US domestic fuel infrastructure. The headline at the moment is Russia re-embracing the US dollar again as part of a wide-ranging economic partnership with the Trump administration. The Kremlin wrote this memo, not Trump! If it's real, anything is possible. Also, the Atlantic Council will release a new report this week titled, "Negotiating with Putin’s Russia", which might provide more info. #uranium $CCJ $LEU $UEC economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/internati… Areas Where Kremlin Memo Sees US and Russian Economic Interests Converge:

@st_sinjun Aluminum metallization was the standard process for all chips before the industry switched to copper around 2000. The switch was made to lower the electrical resistance in high performance chips, at somewhat higher cost. Corrosion is not usually a problem in electronics.

@ClayDMontgomery Ever heard of a company called Sono-Tek $SOTK ? I'm researching to see if their process can be adapted to accomplish the aluminum metallization. Is any company able to do this presently?

What is the uranium enrichment technology currently being developed by General Matter? Some of their recent statements and a big award from the DOE forced me to rethink this and I found something that changes my opinion on their viability. GM says their technology is novel but has a high TRL (technology readiness level). "Novel" rules out centrifuges and "high TRL" rules out laser enrichment. So what else could it be? I thought it was an electrochemical process, such as Ubaryon, but there is a better candidate - Gaseous Diffusion updated with modern technology. The old GD machines at Paducah used 50x more power per SWU than centrifuges. But, what if they were redesigned using modern tech? That 50x gap could be reduced considerably with higher quality porous membranes. Perfect membranes would require billions of precision 10 to 20 nm holes per inch. That was really hard to do in 1945. But, today it is routine in the semiconductor industry. Modern chip fabs can make nearly perfect membranes for higher efficiency Gaseous Diffusion of UF6. But, can silicon withstand corrosive UF6 gas? Not directly. However, aluminum metalization layers are commonly used on most chips today and Al does handle UF6 very well. It was used in the old GD machines. General Matter has its origins in silicon valley where they know what can be made in chip fabs. I worked in the semiconductor industry for 25 years. Remember inkjet printers? They work by squirting ink through an array of precision microscopic holes in a silicon chip. The biggest technical obstacle for GM would probably be demonstrating that they can handle the UF6 corrosion with aluminum metalization. The remainder of GD machines are basically just gas compressors and cooling equipment. That's the sort of conservative tech that fits DOE's mandate for supplier diversity to reduce risk. It's hard to know how far a perfect membrane could go to closing the power efficiency gap with centrifuges and laser enrichment. But, I now think General Matter could quickly become a serious competitor to GLE and Centrus Energy. If I'm right about this, it means that new GD machines will eventually populate the same building that used to house the old GD machines (and next door to GLE) in Paducah, KY. #Uranium #nuclear #silex $ccj $leu

The looming nuclear fuel crisis is very real and the DoE will soon be forced to start writing waivers for continuing imports of Russian EUP, circumventing the US ban. Similar waivers have been purchased for years from Canada, but circumventing new US law is another level. It would also destroy credibility that the US will build 10 new AP-1000s. And Europe has the same problem.

@ClayDMontgomery @jmuelle99 You're "very confident". Might I ask why? The Russian position is set in stone and it seems so are the Ukrainian positions. That leaves only a military solution to the conflict. Trump has been talking for the better part of a year about an agreement and has gotten nowhere.

@Grethe_90 @rekurencja The remaining Russian warheads are plutonium, not uranium. x.com/i/status/20230…

@rekurencja @ClayDMontgomery In the last 3 years this must be third time that a pullback could be triggered by rumors about peace in Ukraine and Russian u308 (that isnt there) flooding the market. So i guess in a few weeks it must be time for denuclearization of warheads again 😴

@JosephSomsel @HopfJames Thank you

@ClayDMontgomery @HopfJames Its been discussed but the general policy is to NOT be on the bleeding edge of technology. We're just standing up the independent regulator and there are two more bills to be passed. So interesting but a decade+ away.

Startup Alva Energy plans to add ~10 GW of US nuclear capacity, by performing large power uprates for existing PWR reactors. The uprates will happen much faster than new reactor construction, with projects costing only ~1 billion, and taking only 5-6 years. Article link in reply. These uprates are nothing like those we've seen before. PWR uprates have only involved power increases of a few percent. Alva Energy is planning for perform PWR uprates that increase power by 20-30% (i.e., 200 to 300 MW). Their novel approach involves replacing the PWR's steam generators, which will increase efficiency by 20-30% (i.e., produce 20-30% more hot steam). They would then build a new, additional turbine hall (steam turbine and electricity generator) that would convert the additional steam into additional electricity generation. The existing turbine hall would remain. Alva's uprates will not require a lot of plant downtime as well. The steam generator replacement would be done quickly, during a planned refueling outage. The plant would continue to operate while the new turbine hall is constructed. Lack of plant down time greatly improves the economics of each project. NRC is currently only expecting ~2 GW of power uprate applications over next 5 years. Alva's plans would yield five times that, over a similar time period. Alva envisions using the extra electricity to power data centers. The ability to bring new nuclear capacity on line, much more quickly than new reactor construction, will avoid the need for data centers to use other energy sources at first, and switch to nuclear much later. The uprated power would take about as much time as building a new natural gas plant (a competing source for data center demand). Thus, this new uprate process may avoid a lot of air pollution and CO2 emissions.

@danishnuclear x.com/i/status/20230…

@ClayDMontgomery Why would this be bearish? Only if people dont understand the sector. I see it as positive if the West again got acces to russian conversion/enrichment, as this bottleneck could have hold some utilities back from replacement rate contracting. .