Wall Street is largely on board with the nuclear bull case. But investor patience is thinning with an industry that is enjoying both political support and demand from deep-pocketed customers, yet still struggles to this day to get any projects actually started.
We noted a similar sentiment with Barclay’s nuclear outlook, as investors increasingly want evidence of real delivery.
New research from Jefferies and Bank of America echo similar verbiage (Professional subscribers can read the full notes here at our marketdesk.ai portal).
Jefferies' Laurence Alexander projects global nuclear capacity reaching 1,903 GW by 2100, (almost 5x from 2025 baseline). Their forecast also has solar capacity expanding roughly 22x, geothermal 18x, and wind 12x.
Jefferies frames the rising electricity consumption as leaving room for generation expansion growth across all four low-carbon sources, instead of one just taking over.
Most of the concerns come down to project financing. Massive upfront costs and years without revenue make nuclear particularly sensitive to financing costs. Government support is a way of bridging the gap, but standardized construction and repeat orders will be what really drives down execution risk.
BofA's conference recap highlights China's approach to repeatable fleet deployment, contrasted against Western developers' reluctance to break ground.
Representatives from nuclear companies in China stated their solution to rapid nuclear deployment was standardization, specialization, and centralization. Emphasizing that this must be done across all key areas, including engineering, construction, and talent, the less-than-democratic nation proves why China's success isn't exactly repeatable in the US.
At the recent World Nuclear Association Symposium, the fuel market found itself at the center of attention as one of the notable constraints of the ongoing nuclear renaissance.
Enrichment was the hot topic of the fuel chain. European enrichment giant Urenco noted their order book had grown from just under €9 billion in 2021 to over €21 billion recently.
We've commented repeatedly on not only the lack of enrichment capacity within the US, but the specific lack of unobligated enrichment capacity. Significant investment is still required across the nuclear value chain, but finding a way to create a fuel supply for America's national defense needs (unobligated) is even further behind.
BofA took notes on Amazon discussing contributing capital and expertise to X-energy, Equinix supporting developers, and Exxon exploring nuclear industrial heat. Grid connections, completed designs and allocating construction risk remain obstacles, while new reactors' timelines extend beyond the immediate data-center boom.
Jefferies favors Cameco, Kazatomprom, NexGen and Denison, while BofA prefers Constellation, Cameco, Oklo and Standard Nuclear.
Needham's Sean Milligan initiated NANO Nuclear with a Buy rating and $33 price target. He highlighted its $8.5 million acquisition of Ultra-Safe Nuclear Corp’s development work behind the 15 MW KRONOS design. The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign project is in formal NRC construction permit review, with key milestones targeted for 2027.
Milligan argues that 9.9% initial enrichment could ease fuel sourcing compared with designs requiring approximately 19.75%, while $580 million of liquidity supports the licensing runway.
Tyler Durden Thu, 09/24/2026 - 15:10Authored by Micaiah Bilger via The College Fix,
Among the many woke winners of this year's prestigious National Book Awards is a black Columbia University professor whose screed attacks "white paint" as racist.
Professor Wendy Walters' new book, "A Dead White: An Argument Against White Paint," claims that white paint is not the "neutral" architectural design element that it initially appears to be.
Instead, she "interrogates all that we have taken for granted about the substance that colors, or fails to color, the structures and objects that surround us - and what the collective impulse toward white paint can tell us about culture, politics, and individual desire," the publisher's description states, in part.
The idea for the book originated with the Ivy League professor's "genuine and visceral dislike of white paint - a feeling that is at times overwhelming," she explained in a 2021 video for Creative Capital Foundation on YouTube.
But Walters pushed back on the idea that her emotional response is "possibly irrational."
"As I tried to understand why my response to white paint was so strong, I discovered numerous examples of the way that it figured into systems of erasure, exclusion, violence, and the masking of power in the social and natural world," she said in the video.
Most of the examples she gave linked white paint to racism.
In one, white supremacists splattered white paint outside the Rothko Chapel in Houston, Texas in 2018, and, in another, white paint was used to vandalize a 100th anniversary memorial gallery to the Tulsa race massacre in 2021.
She also mentioned a rainbow crosswalk for "LGBTQIA+ persons" in New Brunswick, Canada being painted over with white paint in an "act of intolerance."
"I hope to encourage the reader to think about how practices of decoration and adornment might allude to hidden narratives of power, whether or not they recognize them as being so," she said in the video.
The publisher's description of her work does not mention racism or white supremacy, and the book isn't scheduled for release until October.
However, in the 2021 video, Walters linked the book to her past writings about racism. According to her university bio, she "writes regularly about visual culture, political geographies, climate, and race and identity."
"A Dead White" is not the first to link white paint to racism, though.
Three years ago, Norway's University of Bergen received a $1.2 million government grant to explore how white paint has contributed to white supremacy around the world, The College Fix reported at the time.
The "NorWhite" study focuses on whether the Norwegian-developed paint pigment titanium dioxide white helped advance white "as a superior color," Fox News reported.
Why such projects are deemed worthy of awards has a lot to do with the left's capture of the arts and academia. As New York Times columnist Bret Stephens wrote on Tuesday: "Bluntly, the National Book Award has become a D.E.I. checklist: Only authors with preferred identities, preferred topics and preferred politics stand any realistic chance of winning."
Stephens mentioned Walters' book as one example. Other winners, announced last week, include books about "queer" parenting and "Islamophobia in America."
The problem is not that moderates or right-leaning authors are no good. The problem is that they are being shut out and a broad range of topics and ideas are being ignored.
Maybe Walters is a good writer. Maybe not. Her book isn't available to the public yet. But this "everything is racist" bent is getting old and boring. Frankly, it's lazy, too.
Pick something, anything: clean pantries, clowns, Mozart, capitalism, mathematics, milk, Taylor Swift (these are already taken, by the way). Then, argue that it's racist, smatter in a few "lived experiences" and - voila! - book deals and major prizes. Repeat. Again, and again, and again.
And they wonder why so many Americans have developed a distaste for academia.
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Tyler Durden Thu, 09/24/2026 - 14:50Two weeks ago, treasury yields spiked to a 3 year high (still well below 5%), after the first expanded Treasury buyuback operation which had a maximum capacity of $6 billion, resulted in just $5.187 billion in actual buyback offers accepted by the Treasury.
That was a problem because as BofA's rates guru, Mark Cabana, wrote just ahead of the first buyback (his note is available to pro subs), over the last several operations the 10y-20y buybacks had received $18.7 billion of offers on average, or about 9 times oversubscribed (at the old maximum par amount permissable of $2 billion), and Treasury has always bought the maximum.
“A purchase below the max would be unprecedented for the 10y-20y bucket," he wrote.
In the end, the repurchase was some 14% below the max, and that spooked markets because it indicated that dealers were hoping Scott "the house" Bessent was desperate enough he would accept even lowball bids. In the end, he didn't even though a handful of lowball offers were indeed accepted.
So fast forward to today when moments ago the Treasury conducted the first expanded "liquidity support" buyback operation targeting 20-30 year nominal coupons, with the same maximum size of $6 billion.
Surely today bid/ask would be much closer and the Treasury would accept all of the cusips eligible for buybacks... otherwise why even bother expanding the buyback operation.
Well... wrong again, because moments after 2pm we got the results from today's expanded buyback op, and they were even worse than the first one: with $6 billion maximum par amount to be redeemed again, the Treasury received offers for $10.489 billion - identical to the Sept 11 operation - but accepted just $4.078 billion, which is only 68% of the $6 billion cap, down notably from 86% the first time around, which was already a big drop from the 100% it had accepted virtually every time prior!
Why not accept the full $6 billion, again? Well, it appears that "The House" is refusing to play ball with - or pay - the Bloomberg Bros, and the Treasury kicked out virtually all lowball offers today.
Using the same method as the Sept 10 exhibit, none of today's accepted bonds count as lowball offers, compared to 5 two weeks ago. The rule was 0.5bp or more cheap to a curve fitted through all the accepted yields. Today, every one of the 12 accepted issues came within ±0.6bp of that curve (and just two were a near miss)
In other words, the Treasury decided that just $4.1 billion of the $10 billion were fair, and it turned down about $6.4bn of low ball offers rather than pay up. It also accepted only 12 of 35 eligible issues. The two largest purchases were $1.5bn each of the 3.000% 02/2048 and the 1.875% 11/2051, and both came in right on the curve (−0.1bp and +0.1bp).
Other things to know:
And while we commend Bessent's resolve not be bullied around by the Bloomberg bros, the fact that for the second consecutive "expanded" buyback operation, the Treasury accepted well below the minimum, meant that there was far less "liquidity support" than intended, and sure enough yields spiked to a new multi-decade high.
This is turning into quite an interest drama, and many are curious who will win: will Bessent keep turning down lowball offers even if it means a continued meltup in yields, or will he finally cave and accept a few lowball offers allowing a handful of dealers to make a few million extra, if it means not risking the collapse of the bond market. We look forward to the next expanded buyback in two weeks to see which way this clash resolves...
Tyler Durden Thu, 09/24/2026 - 14:36Authored by Jill McLaughlin via The Epoch Times,
Days after President Donald Trump announced a security agreement with Greenland and Denmark, Greenland Mines applied on Sept. 21 to double the size of its rare earth mine to supply magnet metals needed for electric vehicles, wind turbines, and defense systems on the island.
The North Carolina-based company's Sarfartoq rare earth district in southwest Greenland would expand from 74 square miles to about 175 square miles if approved.
"This application is about building Sarfartoq at district scale," said Bo Moller Stensgaard, president of Greenland Mines in a statement.
Greenland Mines is developing a rare earth neodymium and praseodymium project that could reduce the Western Hemisphere's dependence on China for the magnet rare earth minerals. China-based processors control at least 75 percent of the global market for all rare earth elements.
The Greenland Mines project is expected to produce about one-third of the world's neodymium-praseodymium oxide refined outside of China, serving as a key source of the rare earth ingredients needed for energy, transportation, and defense technologies.
China's export restrictions on rare earths have driven prices up in the past year. The Trump administration has focused on supporting and investing in domestic rare earth operations, but a supply of ore is still needed, according to Greenland Mines.
With the signing of the security agreement, Trump said no U.S. adversary could "make sensitive investments [in Greenland] without our express written approval."
"Greenland hosts some of the largest known undeveloped rare earth deposits in the Western world, and a framework that screens adversary capital out of the island makes those deposits more clearly available to allied supply chains," the company stated Tuesday.
Greenland Mines' project includes an open pit and underground mining operation at the site. Initial assessment of the materials at the mine estimate the value at about $2.05 billion, according to the company.
The project would produce rare earth elements used in high-performance permanent magnets.
Critical metals stocks surged Monday on news of the deal, and Greenland-linked market shares rallied when the markets opened.
Greenland Energy, a privately owned Texas company, has an agreement to drill on the Jameson oil and gas project in the Jameson Land Basin on the eastern coast of Greenland. The company, founded in 2025, began shipping drilling equipment to Greenland in late July.
Greenland Mines’ expanding Sarfartoq rare earth district in southwest Greenland. The existing exploration license, outlined in yellow, hosts the Sarfartoq Carbonatite Complex, the ST1 neodymium-praseodymium deposit and several known but less-developed rare earth zones. The new eastern exploration license application is shown in red. Greenland Mines LTD
Critical Metals Corp. is developing the Tanbreez Rare Earth Project in southern Greenland - one of the world's largest deposits with a high concentration of heavy rare-earth elements.
The company's Romanian refinery is also expected to process about 28,000 tons per year of rare earth and critical metal products, including 26,000 tons of high-purity silicon dioxide powder, or silica, used in food, pharmaceuticals, paints, plastics, rubber, ceramics, tech, and electronics.
Tyler Durden Thu, 09/24/2026 - 14:20A Philadelphia activist spent years building a public persona around identities she apparently didn’t have, proving once again that even people obsessed with policing everyone else’s identity occasionally forget to check their own paperwork.
Hannah Gann, a teacher and prominent local anti-Israel activist, admitted this week that she is a white woman who had falsely portrayed herself as having Palestinian, Tunisian and Black heritage, according to the NY Post.
The confession came after fellow activists grew suspicious and confronted her. Gann acknowledged on Instagram - still public and looking like a treasure trove of social justice campaigns and advice on how to handle Covid - that she had been lying for years and described herself as a woman of considerable wealth and privilege.
That was quite a departure from the identity she had cultivated publicly.
Gann had been presented as Palestinian American at activist events, talked about supposed relatives in Palestine and became active in Philadelphia’s pro-Palestinian movement.
The Post writes that former acquaintances remembered someone different. A University of Pennsylvania classmate told the Philadelphia Inquirer that Gann had previously been known as a white Jewish woman. The classmate alleged that after returning from Peace Corps service in Rwanda, Gann began darkening her appearance with makeup and adopting African American Vernacular English.
Members of the Racial Justice Organizing Committee and Philly Educators for Palestine eventually confronted Gann about inconsistencies in her story. The groups said she admitted the deception and later described themselves as stunned and angered by it.
There was apparently a financial angle, too. According to reporting cited by the New York Post, Gann solicited money while claiming financial hardship partly because she was helping relatives in Palestine.
Her actual upbringing appears considerably more comfortable. Her father is a tax attorney who previously worked for the Treasury Department, and the family lived in a Falls Church, Virginia home reportedly worth about $1.8 million.
Gann was also a vocal presence at anti-Israel demonstrations and had attracted attention from antisemitism watchdog groups over statements at protests and online. At one demonstration outside a Jewish bakery following the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, she spoke in support of Palestinian resistance and urged demonstrators to take their movement into the streets.
In her confession, Gann acknowledged the fiction extended to friends, colleagues and even her own family, saying omissions and half truths eventually developed into outright lies.
Which is an impressive amount of commitment to the bit, even by modern activist standards.
The episode has inevitably drawn comparisons with Rachel Dolezal, the former NAACP official revealed in 2015 to be white after presenting herself as Black for years, earning Gann the nickname the “Palestinian Rachel Dolezal.”
Gann teaches at the Workshop School in the Philadelphia School District. The district said it was aware of the controversy and was providing support to students and staff. Whether Gann will face disciplinary action remains unclear.
One commenter on her Instagram wrote: "This is really horrible . We just talked in early september and ya told me your family is palestinian and have suffered so much from this genocide. Im sad for my daughter who admired you deeply, the palestinian community directly impacted by this and the young people who looked up to you."
Another quipped: "Omg we got Palestinian Rachel Dolezal before GTA6."
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