nuclear-news

Wall Street Warns of Nuclear Tech Bubble

Oil Price, By Haley Zaremba – Oct 03, 2025

• Billions of dollars are being invested in advanced nuclear technologies, driven by increasing energy demand from AI and broad bipartisan support.
• Despite significant investment, some Wall Street analysts are concerned about a potential bubble, citing a disconnect between fundamentals and valuations, leading to downgrades for some startups.

Billions of dollars are flowing into cutting-edge nuclear technologies, from nuclear fusion experiments to small modular reactors and microreactors that backers say will catalyze a global nuclear power renaissance. But after years of buzz and successful funding rounds, these Wall Street darlings have yet to send any of their promised carbon-free energy to the grid. 

In 2024, investments in advanced nuclear companies from both private equity and venture capital hit an all time high. According to S&P Global, last year’s investments “surpassed the total deal value of the past 15 years combined.” The push for next-gen nuclear energy has accelerated on the back of growing energy demand projections driven by the proliferation of AI integration…………………………………………..

confidence is being undercut by some Wall Street analysts, who smell a bubble in the making. Semafor reports that “in general, the hysteria around power demand is pushing the valuations of many newly public energy startups beyond what they will realistically be able to deliver.” Dimple Gosai, head of U.S. clean tech equity research at Bank of America, told the news outlet that “the disconnect between fundamentals and valuation is too wide to ignore.”

Oklo, a small modular reactor (SMR) startup backed by AI bigwig Sam Altman, may prove to be such a cautionary tale. While the company’s share values have fared well since its 2024 IPO, the Bank of America downgraded its rating from “buy” to “neutral” just this week. It also downgraded NuScale, another SMR startup, NuScale, from “neutral” to “underperform.”

Axios Pro has also begun to report on investors looking to make a hasty exit from the market via SPAC mergers. SPACs, sometimes referred to as “blank check companies” are shell companies with no existing assets or operations at the time that they go public, making them an ideal “escape hatch” for investors getting cold feet about next-gen nuclear startup companies who want to offload the risk elsewhere. “This is the epitome of dumping on retail investors,” a venture funder told Axios

Pro…………………………………………………………..https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Nuclear-Power/Wall-Street-Warns-of-Nuclear-Tech-Bubble.html

October 5, 2025 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs