Americas Uranium & Nuclear: Which of the 79 SMR (Small Modular Reactor) projects will win?

Research evidence excerpt

Americas Uranium & Nuclear: Which of the 79 SMR (Small Modular Reactor) projects will win?

6 July 2026

Americas Energy & Transition

Americas Uranium & Nuclear: Which of the 79 SMR (Small

Modular Reactor) projects will win?

We are uranium & nuclear bulls (e.g., Bernstein 2026 Uranium/Nuclear Outlook: Glow up or Bob Brackett, Ph.D.

+1 917 344 8422 blow up?) and one catalyst around uranium demand we hear is the success of SMRs (Small

bob.brackett@bernsteinsg.com Modular Reactors). In this note we review and rank the 79 SMR projects in the pipeline,

highlight potential commercial winners, but ultimately see other catalysts as more important

Minnie Xu to uranium demand over the next decade. GEV (Outperform) and CCJ (Outperform) are on the

+1 917 344 8574

minnie.xu@bernsteinsg.com leaderboard for commercial SMR.

Andrianto Guntoro, CFA

+44 20 7676 6825 We don’t think so. We lay our reasons below -

andrianto.guntoro@bernsteinsg.com

- If the load is large, urgent, and 24/7, the first nuclear answer is likely the existing fleet: life

Sunaina Ocalan extensions, uprates, restarts, and eventually large reactors. SMR still matter, but mostly as a

.+1 917 344 8503 second-wave option for smaller grids, phased industrial loads, coal-site replacement, etc.

sunaina.ocalan@bernsteinsg.com

- We introduce our weighted scorecard across licensing, financing, fuel, siting, supply chain Raphael Lee

+1 917 344 8355 and engagement (Exhibit 4- Exhibit 7).

raphael.lee@bernsteinsg.com

- We like SMR projects with high licensing and financing scores, but those projects are

mostly government-backed nuclear or US defense and DOE supported demo (Exhibit 8).

- Fuel supply is a gating Item, not a footnote. Many advanced SMRs require HALEU, TRISO,

metallic, or molten-salt fuel systems.