This article is based on TheStreet’s Stock & Markets Podcast. Hosted by Chris Versace, the veteran Wall Street investor and lead portfolio manager for TheStreet Pro, the weekly podcasts are available early to members of TheStreetPro investing club.
While some see Homer Simpson, Roger Lemaitre sees a field of dreams.
Lemaitre, president and CEO of Homeland Uranium (HLUCF), says the iconic cartoon character illustrates the concern many people have about uranium. The reference? Homer’s dangerous bumbling at the nuclear power plant where he is the safety inspector.
The U.S. Department of Energy actually set up a page on its website entitled “7 Things the Simpsons Got Wrong About Nuclear,” designed to assure Americans that among other things, fuel rods are not used as paperweights and nuclear power plants do not cause mutations.
“What’s happened in the mining space and particularly uranium space since the 1970s is very different than what’s being done today,” Lemaitre told TheStreet Pro’s Chris Versace during the Nov. 12 edition of the Stocks & Markets Podcast.
“It’s a challenge over from those days with the public,” he added. “But I do believe that the rules are much more robust and rightfully so.”
Roger Lemaitre, CEO of Homeland Uranium.
Homeland Uranium/TheStreet
CEO sees big uranium demand in U.S.
Lemaitre said that after the end of the Cold War, Western nations let their existing uranium fuel infrastructure sit idle after the Berlin Wall came down. That was because of the Megatons to Megawatts program, a 1993-2013 agreement that converted uranium from dismantled Russian nuclear warheads into low-enriched uranium for U.S. nuclear power plants.
“Many great companies are in the process of restarting operations or starting some new ones,” he said. “It’s sort of a field of dreams in uranium space. If you can build it in an economics point of view, there is going to be demand within the U.S.”
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Versace explained that artificial intelligence is making significant demands on the electricity grid, driven primarily by the energy-intensive computing required for AI-model training and data centers.
“Electric utilities are stepping up their multiyear capital-spending levels, but the growing thought is that it will take more, and that has brought nuclear power back into the conversation,” he said. “And the forecast, my friends, for nuclear power is strong.”
Formerly known as Valleyview Resources, Homeland Uranium completed a $16 million IPO in March. The company is based in Vancouver.
“If you haven’t heard of us, I’m not surprised,” Lemaitre said. “We’re a new company minted in March, and we’re focused completely on developing two uranium deposits in northern Colorado that have the capacity to be a significant player in the US uranium industry.”
Uranium demand is projected to rise by nearly a third by 2030 and more than double by 2040, according to World Nuclear Association, driven by such factors as ambitious climate targets, the need for energy security, and the increasing energy consumption from data centers.
AI is driving need for more electricity
“When I came back into the uranium space after leaving for a couple of years, there was absolutely a change happening in the uranium industry,” Lemaitre said.
“With the US producing less than 2% of (uranium) for an existing fleet of reactors, and the world changing geopolitically, we just thought this is the right place to be.”
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“I suspect that with the reshoring push … at least by the current administration, [there] are targets to take that higher,” Versace said.
The Trump administration is moving aggressively to expand America’s nuclear energy capacity.
U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said recently that most of the Department of Energy’s loan program funding will be directed toward nuclear power projects — part of a broader effort to meet growing electricity demands and drive down energy costs.
Critics of nuclear energy have raised concerns about the production of long-lasting radioactive waste, potential accidents and the danger of the technology falling into the wrong hands.
Several U.S. nuclear power plants were mothballed or put into long-term shutdown after the 1979 Three Mile Island accident, a partial nuclear meltdown of the Unit 2 reactor of the nuclear generating station near Harrisburg, Pa.
The accident significantly eroded public confidence, led to stricter regulations, and increased construction costs, causing the cancellation of many planned reactors and contributing to the decline of new construction for decades. But things have been turning around.
Software giant Microsoft (MSFT) has partnered with Constellation Energy (CEG) to restart the Three Mile Island nuclear plant to power its AI data centers. The facility is expected to return to service in 2027.
“Solar and wind isn’t going to cut it,” Lemaitre said. ‘And there isn’t a lot more capacity to bring in things in North America when it comes to hydro. So, you’re either going to go with fossil fuels, or you’re going to go with nuclear.”