A public research surface · updated continuously
The nuclear renaissance will be won by whoever owns the chokepoints.
HALEU enrichment, uranium conversion, ultra-large forgings, zirconium cladding, NRC licensing lanes. Nuclear Bottlenecks maps the fuel cycle and component chain behind every restart and SMR — and the listed companies that own each choke. Own the strait, not the tanker.
36 names tracked · 10 chokepoints · free, no login
The chokepoints
I
Enrichment & HALEU
Centrus runs the only NRC-licensed US HALEU cascade; Western SWU is essentially two suppliers plus a Russian import ban with waivers expiring.
LEU · SILXY · CCJ · GENERALMATTER
II
Uranium conversion & deconversion
UF6 conversion is a three-plant Western market and the Metropolis, Illinois plant is the only US converter.
SOLS · CCJ · UEC · BWXT · LEU · GEV
III
Uranium supply & mining
Utilities are structurally under-covered into the late 2020s while Western restarts chase a deficit the spot market already prices.
CCJ · SRUUF · UUUU · UEC · EU · DNN · NXE · URNM
IV
Fuel fabrication & TRISO
Fabricated assemblies come from a handful of licensed lines; TRISO and metallic SMR fuels need facilities that mostly don't exist yet.
BWXT · LEU · XE · CCJ · GEV · LTBR · WESTINGHOUSE
V
Large forgings & heavy components
Reactor pressure vessels need ultra-large forgings only a few plants on earth can pour; order books fill years ahead.
BWXT · CW · JPSWY · HII
VI
Zirconium & specialty metals
Nuclear-grade zirconium sponge and cladding tube is a single-digit-supplier market squeezed between defense and civilian demand.
ATI · CCJ · LTBR · FRAMATOME
VII
SMR & advanced reactor platforms
The visible layer: listed SMR developers racing NRC milestones and first concrete — pre-revenue, catalyst-dense, repricing violently.
BWXT · OKLO · SMR · NNE · LTBR
VIII
Restarts, uprates & nuclear utilities
Existing gigawatts are the only nuclear that ships this decade; restarts, uprates and datacenter PPAs carry dated public catalysts.
CEG · VST · TLN · NEE · PEG
IX
Instrumentation, controls & outage services
Every reactor — new or restarted — buys radiation detection, I&C, dosimetry and outage services from a thin specialist bench.
MIR · CW · BWXT · FLR
X
Private giants & exposure vehicles
Westinghouse, X-energy, TerraPower, Kairos, Urenco — the nuclear cap tables without tickers, and the listed paths into them.
CCJ · BEP · XE · LEU · WESTINGHOUSE · TERRAPOWER · KAIROSPOWER · URENCO
Latest brief · 2026-10-27
GE Vernova led the nuclear complex on a rebound in the reactor-and-power rung, while Japan Steel Works — the world's dominant reactor-forging supplier — was the session's sharpest faller.
The leader was GE Vernova (GEV), up 4.9% to $855.12 on the smr-platforms rung — the reactor OEM whose GE Hitachi joint venture carries the BWRX-300, one of the furthest-along small modular designs, alongside the gas-turbine and grid franchise that feeds the same demand curve. There was no fresh company catalyst; the move recovered roughly the ground the stock had ceded over the prior week, when the datacenter-power trade it sits in sold off. The read for this vertical is that the market is treating reactor-and-turbine capacity as a power-supply chokepoint — the binding constraint on the AI and reindustrialization load — and bought the dip rather than any new print.
The laggard was Japan Steel Works' ADR (JPSWY), down 7.0% to $19.25 in its most recent Tokyo session on the forgings-components chokepoint. JSW is the single most important name in this strait: it holds a near-monopoly on the ultra-large single-piece steel ingots and reactor-pressure-vessel forgings that no amount of capital can quickly replicate, because the press capacity and metallurgical qualification take years to stand up. No company-specific catalyst was confirmed for the move, which reads as position-trimming in a volatile name rather than any change to the forging bottleneck itself — a bottleneck that, if anything, tightens as new-build pipelines firm.
Across the rest of the complex the materials and fuel-cycle rungs firmed while the SMR and enrichment pure-plays softened. On zirconium-cladding and specialty alloys, ATI (ATI) rose 4.9% to $164.54; Silex Systems' ADR (SILXY) added 4.3% to $11.99 on laser enrichment; and BWX Technologies (BWXT) gained 3.2% to $131.20 on the fuel-fabrication and deconversion bench. The uranium-supply rung was modestly green — Sprott Uranium Miners (URNM) +1.8% to $42.54, Uranium Energy (UEC) +1.2% to $7.44, Cameco (CCJ) +0.6% to $79.07. The weakness clustered in the enrichment and SMR developers: Centrus (LEU) −3.9% to $98.44, NuScale (SMR) −2.0% to $5.27, NANO Nuclear (NNE) −2.5% to $11.86 and Oklo (OKLO) −1.6% to $25.94.
The forward calendar is active. BWXT reports Q3 on November 2 and NANO Nuclear gives its fiscal year-end update November 15; the Xe-100 construction-permit NRC review hits an 18-month milestone December 16; and two structural items land by year-end — Bulgaria's Kozloduy Units 7–8 AP1000 final investment decision, and the Westinghouse/US-government definitive agreements that would replace the binding term sheet. Those new-build commitments are what ultimately tighten the forging strait that JSW controls.