quick reply on SMRs from wealthtrack thread :
am a big fan of nuclear power, but the technology is far down the list of issues.
i suggest the podcast 'decoupled' ; it has covered the most (transparent) success cases have been canada , UAE, SK, and france; used old but well-proven technology via the largest scale plants. this success was largely due to a permanent experienced workforce coupled with actual scientists on the regulatory side. china may join the list here if they are are ever completely public about process and safety monitoring.
for SMRs, there is currently no method to select nor combine the best ideas, as dozens of companies have IP and money at stake.
but if this can be is done objectively, they must be mfg in VERY large numbers AND still have a permanent experienced workforce and protected from the whims of political interference. additional cost of a new grid model has a lot of unknowns, could it be more robust AND cheaper? probably not.
the u.s. is about as far away from any of these scenarios as it has ever been.

From Heather Cox Richardson's Letters from an American:
"Will Freeman of the Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank specializing in U.S. foreign policy, posted: 'I can’t think of many *worse* strategic blunders for the U.S., as it competes w/ China, than going nuclear against its oldest strategic ally & last big country in S. America where it enjoys a trade advantage…. Trump certainly expects that b[ecause] 1/3 of Colombian exports go to the U.S. Petro will be forced to back down. But Petro seems to welcome the fight & has already signaled wishes to deepen ties w/ China. Colombia will lose partnership on security it badly needs. Only China stands to gain from this.'"
I can't wait to see what other brilliant maneuvers are carried out
by Trump, an undeniable strategic mastermind.
His sensible actions will surely make our country great once again!

@a2z, thanks for sharing. Saved me time.
what is your take on SMRs and nuclear in general from a climate and general impact on earth POV?

I tend to regard AI as having gone through three cycles:
1. Late 1950s - 1960s. Think ELIZA
https://www.livescience.com/technology/eliza-the-worlds-1st-chatbot-was-just-resurrected-from-60-year-old-computer-code
2. Mid 1980s-1990s. Expert systems, machine learning/reasoning. Memory intensive for the time. The academic response was that we'll just wheel in another memory bank.
3. Now. Generative AI. Power hungry. We'll just bring another nuclear reactor online.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/09/26/1104516/three-mile-island-microsoft/

@WABAC,
You know the guy likes to work the crowd (requires hyperbole). If Hollywood producers offered him to play the President on the screen, he could not have cared less for the responsibilities of the real one.
I do not think he really has any agenda (other than Numero Uno and he is transparent about it) which allows him to change his mind constantly. I do not think he would object if the industry told him "let us not screw up the National Preserves" but we know that is not going to happen. Luckily, we have a Coalition of Single Issue Voters which means there should be a lot of internal conflicts and counterbalances within that coalition. That may save us from extreme outcomes. His new multi-billionaire tech buddies may push him to go full on into Nuclear. We (future Americans) will clean up later any damage done.
I am thinking may be invest in Nuclear in the taxable accounts (long term view) and good old energy stuff in the IRA (for trading).

The nice thing about a fund like GRID is that it doesn't depend on the energy source. Like a lot of things, it's pretty expensive right now.
I generally agree with the rest of your comments. I was indulging my peculiar sense of humor. :)

@WABAC,
You know the guy likes to work the crowd (requires hyperbole). If Hollywood producers offered him to play the President on the screen, he could not have cared less for the responsibilities of the real one.
I do not think he really has any agenda (other than Numero Uno and he is transparent about it) which allows him to change his mind constantly. I do not think he would object if the industry told him "let us not screw up the National Preserves" but we know that is not going to happen. Luckily, we have a Coalition of Single Issue Voters which means there should be a lot of internal conflicts and counterbalances within that coalition. That may save us from extreme outcomes. His new multi-billionaire tech buddies may push him to go full on into Nuclear. We (future Americans) will clean up later any damage done.
I am thinking may be invest in Nuclear in the taxable accounts (long term view) and good old energy stuff in the IRA (for trading).

Interview with Evercore's James West:

Evercore ISI senior managing director James West speaks more about whether fears of Trump's impact on the industry are overblown.
"The fact remains that the IRA bill, which is the largest investment in climate and clean tech that the world has ever seen, is largely going to remain intact because 80% of the job creation and the capital spending is going to red states, or red districts, if not higher now that more states have flipped red," West tells Yahoo Finance.
Clean energy producers and even nuclear energy developers have been posed as the solution to AI data center's energy demands.

natural-gas-big-winner-powers Manufacturing and New Tech (AI)

Berkshire sold its BYD stake down to 5% from more than 20%, after holding it since 2008 (bought initially for approx $1 a share). That made me think may be battery technology does not have as much a future as is needed for non-nuclear renewable energy or may be he sold because he thought as a Chinese company, it could face headwinds in the global markets. OR both reasons. Obviously, I do not take his official reasoning on its face value. He bought and sold TSM quickly on questionable US-China relations, which I understood.

I also own NLR CCJ and GRID. I am a bit suspicious of SMR as their first project sorta died. It seems obvious if this country has run small nuclear reactors on submarines and large surface ships, we can design and rum small reactors for Data farms etc
I think infrastructure and Grid enhancements the "picks and shovels" of Climate change and AI are better bets than stocks selling for 34 times Sales, ie NVDA

last week I bought a few thousand SMR and OKLO to increase my nuclear energy investments.
WOW up 75%!!! Unfortunately the "few thousand " was dollars, not shares

SMRs will allow decentralized infrastructure, increasing national security, lower Grid costs, etc. lots of benefits and practical.
If SMR (Small modular reactors) take off, then what is the future for all the EV car companies, which is really a play on innovations in battery technology. E.g., Tesla, BYD, etc.?
I am waiting Berkshire Energy to get into SMRs.
Disclosure: I own NLR.

last week I bought a few thousand SMR and OKLO to increase my nuclear energy investments.
WOW up 75%!!! Unfortunately the "few thousand " was dollars, not shares

News item on nuclear:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-report-says-corrosion-michigan-162423886.html

"Bottom line is it will be impossible to contain global warming and meet power needs without nuclear, which may still be cleaner than coal and the environmental damage from fracking etc."
Yes, my thought also. It's going to take wind, solar, and (unfortunately) also nuclear to get where we need to go. Best of some bad choices.

There could be solar on every roof and parking lot in the Phoenix metro, but our utilities haven't figured out how to get richer on it.
Here's something California ought to be thinking about. Dinky linky.

@sma3 …the reason UTES is up >42% is due to their holdings in Vistra and Constellation, and the renaissance of modern nuclear energy generation.

"Bottom line is it will be impossible to contain global warming and meet power needs without nuclear, which may still be cleaner than coal and the environmental damage from fracking etc."
Yes, my thought also. It's going to take wind, solar, and (unfortunately) also nuclear to get where we need to go. Best of some bad choices.

NYT has a "nuclear power is a disaster" article harking back to Three Mile Island, which I remember well. I saw "China Syndrome" the day before three mile Island cratered. Talk about life imitating fiction!
The New Yorker had a three part article ( remember those?) about what went wrong. It was basically operator stupidity. You would think AI and better computerization wol fix this.
Bottom line is it will be impossible to contain global warming and meet power needs without nuclear, which may still be cleaner than coal and the environmental damage from fracking etc.
I can't imagine restarting Three Mile ISland will be easy or cheap.
Other ideas worth considering are NLR, URanium ( has had a huge move up) and even SMR ( modular nuclear reactors which have yet to have a successful installation and even Sam Altman backed OKLO. Both of the later two are rising from the dead

Any fresh thoughts re investing a few bucks here?
A number of companies package up variable rate demand notes into bank account-like accounts. Features may vary slightly (e.g. min required, check writing ability, min transaction amount) but the underlying investments are similar as are the way these accounts work.
Companies that offer these accounts seem to be rated BBB or A and are using these accounts as a relatively cheap way to get cash. Some BBBs: Duke, Dominion, GM, and Ford. Some As: Toyota, Mercedes-Benz (only accredited investors), and Caterpillar
A couple of webpages from 2021 on these types of investments:
MyMoneyBlog: https://www.mymoneyblog.com/big-list-of-car-demand-notes-non-fdic.html
Bogleheads thread: https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=340088
And a 2021 WSJ article cited in the Bogleheads thread (subscription or library card required):
https://www.wsj.com/articles/car-maker-notes-attract-investors-seeking-short-term-yield-11605781801

Called "variable denomination floating rate demand notes," the securities are basically unsecured bonds, paid by the company's cash from operations. There is no public market and investors can typically withdraw their money at will. Rates can be changed at any time by the company, which can call the securities at its discretion.

What's the risk?
For my money (pun intended), I'd rather go with a Treasury MMF yielding around 5.1%; since it's state tax exempt that's not much different from 5.5% fully taxable and a whole lot safer.
https://olui2.fs.ml.com/Publish/Content/application/pdf/GWMOL/ICCRateSheet.pdf
If I had to go with a single issuer, I'd look at the A rated companies.
A nuclear accident that bankrupts the company?
Not likely.

[The] Price-Anderson [Act has since 1957 freed] nuclear plant operators and all firms involved in nuclear construction and maintenance of any liability for offsite accident damage. The only chance for additional compensation lies in the act’s declaration that if accident damages exceed the legal limit “Congress will thoroughly review the particular incident” and will “take whatever action is determined to be necessary” to provide full compensation to the public. In short, a Fukushima-level accident would toss the costs of compensation and cleanup unto the lap of Congress.

https://thebulletin.org/2020/02/the-us-government-insurance-scheme-for-nuclear-power-plant-accidents-no-longer-makes-sense/
This was recently extended (for another 40 years) and expanded with little publicity. It's a sizeable and relatively unknown industry subsidy.
What was publicized were billions of dollars allocated in the Inflation Reduction Act for maintaining existing nuclear plants and building new ones.
https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/inflation-reduction-act-keeps-momentum-building-nuclear-power

Any fresh thoughts re investing a few bucks here?
Interest rates are pretty sharp
What's the risk? A nuclear accident that bankrupts the company?
Thoughts?

Bumping the thread.
Why is everything Nuclear I follow getting hammered today? Renewable energy stocks are doing well today. No middle ground for this market?
Good to see Bitcoin diverge from equities and from tech equities in particular.

First of all….sorry @hank…..I oftentimes get you and @Crash mixed up in my brain for some reason reason. It was Crash’s post that he since deleted. So sorry!!! @Crash, your post DID have some good investing stuff in it, you’re right.
Second of all, I think many of us can be disappointed that the parties we have so long known no longer exist, as they have been taken over by individuals or families and dominated (Clinton’s and Obamas of Democratic Party, and Bush’s and now Trump’s of Republican Party). Most of us vote for the party that upholds the core handful of things that we believe in, with the other stuff that we DONT believe in being not enough to make us vote for “the other guy” (and hopefully, “girl” someday soon!). Last piece of politicking, I promise :)
I don’t know how de-globalization, stopping the mass border crossings (a supply of cheap, “pay under the table,” labor) and “making things with that beautiful ‘Made in America’ stamp” aren’t inflationary. Combined with pressure put on the Fed to lower interest rates, where will that leave our economy?
I watch way too much CNBC (it’s usually on as background noise), but Cramer was saying how the Russell 2K can’t handle billions and trillions rotating out of tech/growth because the market cap of the entire index is a mere percentage of a single Mag 7 stock. So they cannot be market leaders by themselves. LC value could be….maybe betting on the next trillion dollar market cap stock? LLY, BRK, JPM are close (above $500 billion).
@BaluBalu, what do you mean “Energy Services” stocks? SLB and HAL (sorry for the ignorance), or pipelines/drilling stocks? Good point that increased supply will mean lower prices (good for consumer, arguably, but less good for energy stocks). Maybe energy transportation stocks, as the US would likely be exporting more energy (especially LNG). I have held in the past OKE (but sold about $20 lower price! *face palm*), ENB, WMB, KMI. Pipeline companies trade more correlated to oil than they probably should. But these are NOT K-1 issuing companies.
I think defense stocks would do ok, even with the ending of war, as munition stocks would be replenished from the drawdowns from supplying Ukraine, and continued high military spending; maybe an increase in supplying Israel with military “stuff.”
Utilities have been a mixed bag the last week or so, as the winners of the AI-linked energy supply, such as VST or CEG (and NEE, but that’s more green energy) have gone down as much or more than big tech. And I believe these are some of the more nuclear utility companies; you would think the new administration would be ok with nuclear power (maybe it’s “down with everything that’s considered alternative energy”).
As far as fixed income, I’m not playing a drop in rates yet (as the market moves interest rates more than the Fed does anyways), other than potentially getting out of money markets. I continue to use preferreds (several that are floating rate, such as mREIT preferreds) and baby bonds, CLO ETFs (JAAA, JBBB, CLOZ…..thanks to multiple posters here for teaching me about them), and the low volatility mutual funds that @junkster and @FD1000 and others like (RSIVX, RCRFX/RCRIX, and a few others) that either don’t move or go up a penny every 5-10 days or so. I have been burned by income CEFs too many times to count; their yield is great, and if they traded like their NAV, then they would be amazing investments, but alas, their prices swing wildly. If I want to lose money, I would be better off swing trading the 3x tech ETPs hahaha. So I’m staying mostly away from bond CEFs and core/core-plus/multisector bond OEFs too.
For my wife’s 401(a) she DCAs into once a month, her two biggest holdings are DODGX and HACAX (Harbor’s LCG). They’re about an equal allocation, and they take turns going up (or down) more than the other. I got her out of her small cap value holding there about 2 weeks before the meteoric rise over the last 7-10 days (“I’m an excellent market timer”), and I also have a workplace retirement account from my current employer that I cant add to, and is limited to OEFs only. In that account I am WAY overweight LC growth and tech (I am 47, though so I can be, hopefully?) and only hold a tracking amount of @stillers favorite AUERX as my only SC holding. I WILL talk up a fund that MFO has talked about in the past: FAMEX, a MC blend/value fund that is a long term winner, and is the number 2 holding in that account (a distant 2nd to PRWCX; can’t believe my good fortune that I got into that fund before it closed!).
Apologies for the last paragraph: it went off topic for this thread.
I will continue to favor big tech for longer term returns, and the high quality of the companies. Most even pay a dividend now (even if a pittance). Maybe an equal weight in both LC growth and LC value would be a good way to play the next several months, rather than holding the S&P 500 index (which is basically LCG)? Or a quality fund, like @davidrmoran and several others like (including me; I own GQEPX and some accounts I manage have QLTY).
Apologies for the length of my post….sheesh. And apologies for the kerfluffle from my earlier post (AND FOR MISTAKEN IDENTITY!)!!