Tech Billionaires Rally Around Nuclear as Energy Crisis Looms
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
Distributed power, which I like, tends to remove cost and is harder to generate a revenue flow from because its about avoiding those big central, fat-bill lumps.
Not to under-state that they really do want clean power, but their choice of which kind is motivated by a join over both clean, and profit.
I agree that renewables and distributed energy generation are the path forward, but I can understand a lot of investors having reasonable scepticism (even after more than a decade of proven wind + solar ramp-up) about those technologies remaining market-leading.
Under that mindset, it's not so much about "will investment in this individual company make {me/my portfolio audience} the largest return", but moreso "is this the investment that I can leave as-is for twenty years and be most-confident about".
I agree that SMR, as a midpoint to the old behemoths and fully distributed, is a good bet: once it works, it keeps on working, and it can be plugged into the distribution network simply. PV and Wind requires balancing, more thinking, intermittency calls for overbuild.. its not like the alternative is problem free even if I like it.
And there is a compelling energy-density story too. I suspect they like the law of big numbers: capital costs being equal, GW for $ you get more from SMR. Minus lawyers, time delay, lawyer-induced excess safety build, more cowbell (sorry Lawyers)...