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 · 2026-07-28
The nuclear tape split cleanly — fuel-cycle, enrichment and SMR names rallied on the HALEU and Section 232 tailwind while the AI-power merchant utilities sold off with the broader capex scare.
NANO Nuclear led the basket, up 7.7% to $16.79, at the front of a broad bid across the SMR and fuel-cycle chokepoints rather than on a single headline — its KRONOS microreactor is in NRC construction-permit review and it has been building out fuel logistics. The move was cohort-wide: Centrus, the only US uranium enricher, rose 7.4% to $175.98; Lightbridge 6.9% to $8.02; NuScale 5.6% to $8.54; Oklo 3.9% to $41.81. The through-line is HALEU — the high-assay low-enriched uranium that advanced reactors need and that Russia still dominates — where a pending Section 232 domestic-sourcing decision and Centrus's blowout Q1 (backlog reported near $3.8 billion) have put a policy bid under the enrichment chokepoint.
The laggard came from the other end of the vertical: Vistra fell 3.9% to $157.08 and Talen 3.6% to $347.07 — the merchant restart-and-AI-power utilities that rise and fall on datacenter demand. On a session when a WSJ report on Nvidia backstopping a $250 billion OpenAI buildout reignited AI-capex fears, the names whose thesis is selling power to those datacenters were sold with the AI complex, while Constellation eased 1.6% to $270.00. The chokepoint split is the read: the fuel and reactor supply chain rallied on policy, and the power-offtake trade de-rated on demand doubt.
The uranium-supply chokepoint firmed across the board — Uranium Energy up 4.2% to $9.91, enCore/EU 4.4% to $1.19, Energy Fuels 3.6% to $11.71, Cameco 1.7% to $89.35 — consistent with contract pricing near multi-year highs and the pledge by 38 countries to triple nuclear capacity by 2050. X-Energy added 4.4% to $15.20 in fuel fabrication. The zirconium-cladding and forgings names lagged the rally, ATI off 2.6% to $192.64, tracking the broad industrial tape rather than the nuclear bid.
Earnings arrive in a wave. NextEra reports July 29; ATI, Constellation and Mirion on July 30; Cameco on July 31 (watch the Westinghouse equity contribution). Then BWXT (August 3), Centrus — the enrichment read the whole HALEU trade rides on — around August 4–6, Talen (August 6), X-Energy's first full quarter public (August 6), Oklo (August 10) and NuScale (August 12). Beyond earnings, the Section 232 status report is the policy catalyst that could formalize domestic-sourcing rules and reprice the enrichment chokepoint; the World Nuclear Symposium in London (September 9–11) frames global supply.