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Polish billionaire’s financing plans for 14 UK SMRs analysed

“I think the price projections are utterly worthless. If you don’t know the construction cost and time, the cost of capital, the equity structure, not to mention the O&M (operation and maintenance) cost, you have no idea what the power price will be.”

“So if things don’t go to plan, it will be the government’s fault, not theirs. (SGE’s)”

– Stephen Thomas, professor at the University of Greenwich Business School, working in the area of energy policy.

25 Aug, 2026 By Tom Pashby, https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/polish-billionaires-financing-plans-for-14-uk-smrs-analysed-25-08-2026/

Financing plans from Polish billionaire Michał Sołowow’s SGE to enable the deployment of 14 small modular reactors (SMRs) in the UK have been revealed by NCE and analysed by an expert.

In July, SGE – described as a dedicated European SMR development and investment platform – announced its plans to build 14 GE Vernova Hitachi BWRX-300 Small Modular Reactors on three sites in the UK.

In total, the investment is expected to be around £35bn and the first SMRs are hoped to be operational in 2034.

To achieve that, SGE has submitted an application under the UK’s Advanced Nuclear Framework (ANF) to develop the combined 4.2GW fleet which, if successful, could deliver 11% of UK power demand for at least sixty years.

Using the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act, New Civil Engineer (NCE) has secured correspondence between SGE and the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) where SGE set out more details about its ambitions to finance its SMRs.

SGE’s representatives at etara – a power, energy and infrastructure advisory firm – sent a letter from SGE to DESNZ deputy director for advanced nuclear Andrew Cooke dated 26 June.

The letter was addressed to the then DESNZ secretary of state Ed Miliband.

“We are writing to set out how SGE’s privately led SMR fleet deployment programme can support DESNZ’s priorities on clean power, energy security, industrial growth and reliable nuclear baseload, ahead of our application to the Advanced Nuclear Framework (ANF) which we plan to submit next week on the 1 July 2026,” it said.

SGE said it is “bringing forward one of the UK’s most mature privately led SMR propositions”, and this would be “on better value for money terms helping reduce the long-term impact on UK bill payers”.

It backed up the promise of value for money by saying: “Our fleet approach across Europe, including leveraging our regional exclusivity on the GE Vernova technology deployment and our 14 unit programme in Poland with our JV partner Orlen, gives us confidence that we can deliver on attractive economic terms

Their plans were shown to University of Greenwich emeritus professor of energy policy Steve Thomas, who shared his analysis with NCE. SGE provided NCE with responses to his analysis.

SGE’s letter said: “Our preliminary financial modelling is indicating that the CfD (contracts for difference) strike price is expected to be below that of Hinkley Point C with a lesser risk transfer than the Sizewell C Rab (regulated asset base) model, offering better value for money.”

Thomas said: “As I never tire of pointing out, CfD tells you nothing other than that the plant is not bidding into the market. Hinkley has one, so will Sizewell. The very big difference is that for Hinkley, the price is fixed and the investor income will be what it will be and for Sizewell, the investor income is fixed and the electricity price will be what it will be.

Responding to Thomas’s analysis, SGE said: “It is true that for Hinkley the CfD price is fixed and the pain of overruns is impacting the investors.

“For Sizewell it is true that the consumer will pay whatever it costs, but it is not quite right that there will be a CfD, there already are charges to consumers under the Rab model – well before the plant is constructed or produces power.

“The CfD model proposed by SGE, as with Hinkley pre-sets at FID the strike price, so keeps the completion risk and majority of cost outturn risk with the investors, hence the projections do matter for the investors and for the value for money evaluation by the government.

“As with all standard project appraisals, our financial model underpins the indicative strike price. It is informed by live data from construction of the first BWX300 SMR in Canada and benefits from economies of scale from our projects across Europe.”

The letter said SGE’s offer would involve “lesser risk transfer than the Sizewell C Rab model”.

Thomas said it was “interesting that this is implicit criticism of the Sizewell deal and I wonder how that will go with DESNZ, which sold Sizewell on the basis it was better for consumers than Hinkley, now we are going back to the Hinkley model because it is better than Sizewell.”

Responding to Thomas’s analysis, SGE said: “There is no criticism of the Sizewell model, just a factual reference to the relative risk allocation – the CfD model keeps a greater level of risk (e.g. completion risk) with the investors, not with taxpayers or consumers.

“It is common practice to benchmark, and this is all that the reference does. The proposed model draws on lessons from Hinkley Point C, Sizewell C and other reference projects across Europe.”

SGE’s letter said the success of its proposition is “subject to supportive government engagement” and said, “our delivery team with the capability of GE Vernova and Samsung is capable of delivering first power to the grid by 2034”.

Thomas said: “So if things don’t go to plan, it will be the government’s fault, not theirs.”

SGE responded, saying: “This is not a fault allocation point but a simple point that nuclear projects require state engagement – self-evidently, the CfD agreement needs the state’s agreement and signature.

“Delivery of any major infrastructure project requires close collaboration between government and the client organisation across planning, regulation, financing and delivery.”

The letter said: “To convert this mature proposition into delivery, we are seeking government support that is practical, targeted and designed to be off government balance sheet to mobilise our private capital.”

Thomas analysed, saying: “That sounds like the Rab process which didn’t go well as the government ended up having to take near enough half the project, so definitely not off the government balance sheet.”

SGE responded, saying: “The support proposed is not Rab but CfD. The ANF is seeking a structure that mobilises private capital. SGE is offering such private capital under CfD terms.

“Our proposal is designed to mobilise private capital through a structure that is intended to remain off the government balance sheet, subject to the final model and accounting treatment.”

Finally, the letter also said: “Utilising the CfD and SoSIA (Secretary of State Investor Agreement) contractual frameworks with specific modifications that take the lessons learnt from Hinkley Point C (HPC) and from a number of new nuclear projects across Europe that have since HPC been enabled under CfD structures.”

Thomas said: “I will give very good odds that one of the specific modifications is that the strike price is not fixed at the time of FID (final investment decision), but if costs go up, so will the strike price.”

SGE said: “As per the CfD structures in Europe that are referred to, there are pain share mechanisms, as well as gain share mechanisms, but not full pass-through to the strike price.

“SGE is an equity investor into a new nuclear programme and, along with its strategic partners, it intends to take development and construction risks – it will not simply transfer any cost increase into the CfD.

“Any modifications to the CfD and SoSIA frameworks would be subject to agreement with government and reflected in the agreed contractual and regulatory framework and be subject to the controls that exist for any state support regarding value for money considerations.”

Later in the correspondence between SGE and DESNZ officials, public relations staff working on behalf of SGE asked DESNZ officials to attend their press launch event in July and for a minister to provide a quote for their press release.

Officials were unavailable for the launch event.

In response to the request for a quote, a DESNZ official said: “As the submission of a proposal is part of a routine administrative process, consistent with the department’s approach to comparable processes such as entry into the Generic Design Assessment (GDA), DESNZ does not provide public quotes or commentary at the point of application.

“This approach helps ensure that the department remains impartial throughout the assessment process and avoids any perception that a submission has been endorsed or prejudged prior to the completion of the relevant assessment and decision-making processes.

“Should a proposal be successful, there may be opportunities for communications and stakeholder engagement at the appropriate stage. However, at the point of submission, the department will not be providing a quote.”

An SGE spokesperson told NCE: “SGE’s interactions with DESNZ have been and remain positive and constructive.

“We understand the department’s approach that reflects its standard policy in relation to the ANF process. We look forward to continuing our engagement with DESNZ as we progress our UK project.”

August 27, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, UK | Leave a comment

South Korea helps Egypt expand Russian-built nuclear plant

South Korea’s growing role in Egypt’s Russian-built El Dabaa nuclear plant has helped shield the project from sanctions and enabled expansion

The New Arab Staff, 22 August, 2026

South Korea’s growing role in Egypt’s Russian-built El Dabaa nuclear power plant has helped Cairo shield the project from Western sanctions and paved the way for a major expansion of the site, according to senior Egyptian energy officials.

Electricity and Renewable Energy Minister Mahmoud Esmat said in televised remarks that Egypt was studying the addition of at least two more nuclear units at El Dabaa, with the possibility of eventually expanding the complex from four reactors to six or even eight.

Senior sources at Egypt’s Ministry of Electricity and Energy told The New Arab that the proposed expansion reflected “a state of confidence” surrounding the project following South Korea’s entry as a partner alongside Russia’s Rosatom.

They said South Korean involvement had enabled Egypt to gain access to Western-linked technology while limiting the exposure of companies working on El Dabaa to US and European sanctions imposed on Russian firms following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

According to the sources, the South Korean government is expected to provide financial and technical support for future expansions of El Dabaa, alongside its existing role in completing control systems and turbine-related work.

The arrangement has allowed Russia to retain control of the project’s nuclear core while South Korean companies handle major elements of its conventional power-generation infrastructure.

The sources said South Korea had taken on work that US company General Electric did not proceed with following the outbreak of the Ukraine war.

Egypt currently plans four Russian-designed VVER-1200 reactors at El Dabaa, with a total capacity of 4.8 gigawatts.

The proposed expansion could eventually increase capacity to 9.6 gigawatts by 2040, according to the sources.

Nuclear energy experts said Esmat’s remarks “open the door to transforming El Dabaa from a four-unit plant into a larger nuclear complex”.

No cost estimate, reactor models or timetable have yet been announced for the additional units.

However, the experts said Cairo increasingly views El Dabaa as “the nucleus of a long-term nuclear programme, rather than a standalone project that ends with the operation of four reactors”.

South Korea’s involvement in the project expanded rapidly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine complicated Western-linked supply chains.

Experts at Egypt’s Nuclear Energy Authority told The New Arab that Russian nuclear energy company Rosatom accelerated moves to bring Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power into El Dabaa as the key supplier for the turbine island and associated control systems for the four Russian units.

Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power signed a $2.25 billion contract with Russia’s Atomstroyexport in Cairo on 25 August 2022, months after the outbreak of the war and the introduction of Western sanctions…………………………………………………
https://www.newarab.com/news/south-korea-helps-egypt-expand-russian-built-nuclear-plant

August 25, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, Egypt, South Korea | Leave a comment

Golden Dome Secrecy Poses Challenge for Estimating Costs.

The Pentagon has said it expects the program to cost $185 billion to build over the next 10 years, but think tank experts and government analysis have argued the bill for what Trump’s executive order articulated will likely be much higher. One of the first outside estimates, released last year by the American Enterprise Institute, projected costs ranging anywhere from $250 billion to $2.4 trillion. In May, the Congressional Budget Office pegged the program’s cost at $1.2 trillion.

COMMENT, by Alice Slater. Don’t forget that Russia and China have been urging us for years to negotiate a treaty to prohibit weapons and war in space which the US and our Peace Movement generally ignores! Most recently, they issued a Joint Proposal on the 80th Anniversary of WWII last summer for more global cooperation., criticizing the Golden Dome and urging that we negotiate their draft treaty to ban weapons and war in space, pledging never to be the first to put weapons or war in space!!! Why aren’t we all urging the US government and its allies in crime to take up this proposal and save one and a half trillion dollars on the Golden Dumb!! See Russian and Chinese proposal here: http://en.kremlin.ru/supplement/6310

Aug. 19, 2026 | By Courtney Albon, https://www.airandspaceforces.com/golden-dome-secrecy-challenge-cost-estimates/

While Pentagon officials have revealed some details about the architecture behind the Golden Dome missile defense project, crafting an independent cost estimate for a largely classified program remains a challenge, experts said Aug. 19.

President Donald Trump issued an executive order in January 2025 directing the Pentagon to build a multilayered missile defense shield to protect the U.S. from traditional and advanced missile threats, to include hypersonic weapons. Defense Department officials have said the system will consist of command-and-control nodes, satellite sensors, and ground-and- space-based interceptors, but the finer details of that architecture—including numbers of satellites and interceptors—remain shrouded in secrecy.

These wide-ranging projections point to the lack of a common, unclassified understanding of what systems and technology will underpin the program, which experts said is the fundamental challenge of estimating Golden Dome’s cost.

Speaking at a Brookings Institute event, CBO’s Director of National Security Analysis David Mosher said the organization was tasked by lawmakers to put a price tag on the scope laid out in Trump’s initial executive order rather than try to estimate what the Golden Dome program office is actually building—an important distinction.

“The Golden Dome they’re building is perhaps different than the Golden Dome in the executive order,” Mosher said. “We couldn’t have costed what they’re building because nobody knows what they’re building yet.”

With the executive order as the baseline, the report constructed an architecture with the elements included in Trump’s directive and then sized it “to protect what we thought was a sort of plausible, relatively large attack from North Korea, or a modest attack from Russia or China,” Mosher said. The resulting notional architecture features four interceptor layers designed to target multiple missile types and to operate either independently or in concert with an associated command-and-control network:

A space-based constellation of 7,800 satellites designed to take out up to 10 intercontinental ballistic missiles launched near simultaneously as well as hypersonic glide vehicle threats
An upper wide-area surface layer comprised of three Ground-Based Midcourse Defense sites, each with 60 Next-Generation Interceptors or Ground-Based Interceptors focused on engaging ICBM threats
A lower wide-area surface layer with four U.S.-based sites, each equipped with 48 SM-3 Block IIA interceptors to defeat ICBMs or hypersonic glide vehicles
A “regional sector” layer with 35 interceptor and radar sites loaded with THAAD, SM-6 Block IB, and Patriot interceptors that can target ICBMs, glide vehicles, and cruise missiles

The space-based interceptor constellation would be the most expensive element of this architecture by far, costing $743 billion over 20 years, or 60 percent of the total cost. The report, which calls its architecture a “middle ground” between more limited and high-end alternatives, estimates each SBI-equipped satellite would cost $22 million and have a five-year service life.

CBO’s report also includes the cost of a satellite sensing layer—which it projects would require about $90 billion to develop, field, and maintain—as well as the battle management and communication systems needed to coordinate the broader architecture. The sensing layer would include satellites such as the Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor, which the Space Development Agency is fielding as part of its low-Earth orbit missile-tracking constellation, and space-based air moving target indication satellites, which the Space Force is currently developing.

Golden Dome Director Gen. Michael Guetlein has pushed back on CBO’s estimates, saying they’re built on inaccurate assumptions about what his team is actually building. According to Guetlein, the report’s assumptions are based on technology envisioned in the early 2000s “for a different fight”—one focused on point defense, or defense of a limited area, rather than the regional, homeland defense mission that underpins Golden Dome.

“That is not what we need for the homeland,” he said in May. “In a regional defense, there’s a different architecture. And you can’t just take what we’ve done in the past and multiply it forward or you’re going to get large numbers like CBO got.”

Mosher acknowledged the report is detached from the program office’s architecture, pointing out multiple times that CBO and the general public do not have access to those details. He said CBO has asked for briefings but hasn’t been able to meet with program officials.

“I know nothing about what they’re actually building except what I read in publications,” Mosher said.

According to Guetlein, a key difference between the architecture envisioned in the CBO report and what the Pentagon is pursuing through Golden Dome is the use of “next-generation” technology like AI, advanced computing, and directed energy.

Mosher said that for the most part, the report used existing systems as a baseline because they’re a known quantity. He said it’s true that harnessing advanced technology could lower costs over time, especially for some space-based elements of the architecture. However, other technologies like high-energy lasers in space aren’t yet ready for prime time, which means it’s likely not a near-term differentiator.

“We tend to estimate what we see,” he said. “New technologies might provide the opportunity for that, I think we mentioned that as a possibility, but it’s not what you would have in the near term, which is what they’re trying to do.”

August 24, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Private investors are not rushing into nuclear. The Netherlands has chosen another path

The Dutch government has therefore opted for a wholly state-owned company.

the Dutch government is also responding to recommendations from the International Atomic Energy Agency

Martin Voříšek, 19 August 2026, https://oenergetice.cz/en/nuclear-power/private-investors-are-not-rushing-into-nuclear-the-netherlands-has-chosen-another-path

The Dutch government is gradually preparing a financing model for two new nuclear power plants in the country. After assessing investor interest, it concluded that private investors are unwilling to bear a substantial share of the construction risks. The state has therefore taken the leading role through the wholly state-owned company NEO NL. The state will also bear the costs of at least the initial phase of construction of the new units, in order to accelerate their delivery as much as possible.

The Netherlands is one of the less visible European countries pursuing the construction of new nuclear units. This is only because its preparations are still at an early stage. Its preparations follow a broader European trend in which new large-scale nuclear projects increasingly resemble anything but ordinary private investments. The state therefore acts in the project not only as regulator and provider of support, but directly as investor, lender and future owner of the project.

The Netherlands’ current advantage is that its project is only at the beginning of preparations. It can therefore still be adapted relatively painlessly to the current realities of the European market in order to ensure the earliest and least costly possible completion.

Private investors are not “rushing” to build

One of the key questions in the preparations was whether the project could be developed and delivered by private investors. However, as government documents show, private companies are prepared to participate only if the state assumes virtually all risks associated with preparing and building the power plants. Construction of Hinkley Point C. Source: EDF

The current risks associated with building nuclear power plants are well known: in particular, long construction periods, uncertainty over costs, the duration of permitting processes, interest rate developments and future revenues in the electricity market. The combination of these factors has long constrained the ability of major nuclear projects to secure commercial financing without extensive public support.

A promising investment can thus very easily become an investor’s nightmare, entirely beyond the investor’s control.

NEO NL: State company responsible for building new units

The Dutch government has therefore opted for a wholly state-owned company, Nucleaire Energie Organisatie Nederland, abbreviated as NEO NL. Its task will be to prepare, build and operate the new nuclear power plants, with the state as its sole shareholder.

NEO NL was established on 16 February 2026 and is set to assume the role of future owner and operator of the units. In doing so, the Dutch government is also responding to recommendations from the International Atomic Energy Agency, according to which the future operator should become involved in project preparations as early as the design and construction phase.

The state expects this arrangement to provide greater control over the project, particularly over the choice of technology, risk allocation and the long-term operation of the plants.

State control over technology selection was, after all, also one of the priorities of the Czech government. It first excluded suppliers from China and Russia from the tender to supply units at Dukovany, while the final choice was also the result of agreement between ČEZ and the state.

The state will take over project financing, at least during the first construction phase

As early as October 2025, the Dutch government stated that, according to its analysis, fully state-backed financing was the least costly option in terms of the project’s total costs. The state can generally obtain funding on better terms than a private company. While a higher share of private financing could reduce the impact on the budget, it would make the entire project more expensive.

Once the power plants are completed, the interest rate is to be set at the yield on Dutch government bonds plus one percentage point. In its documents, the Dutch government specifically refers to the Dukovany project, whose public-support model for one unit inspired it.

In June this year, the cabinet confirmed that the state would bear all financing costs for the two new large power plants, at least during the first phase of their construction. Private financing remains theoretically open for later refinancing or a potential equity contribution by the supplier, but not as the main source of funding in the early phase of the project.

Two locations under consideration, two main suppliers

Alongside the financing model, the question of the unit supplier is also gradually becoming clearer. The Netherlands initially assessed options from France’s EDF, US-based Westinghouse and South Korea’s KHNP. However, KHNP withdrew from the technology selection process in March 2025. Two Western technologies therefore remain in contention.

The project currently covers two large units, but the government is considering including an option for two additional reactors in the contract. Here, too, the Czech approach is an evident inspiration: the current contract with KHNP represents an order for two reactors at the Dukovany site and an option for two further reactors at Temelín. Such an approach could shorten preparations for the third and fourth units while improving the negotiating position in agreeing the price and delivery terms.

The site selection has not yet been fully finalised. Although the government excluded several initially considered options in June this year, it is still deciding between Eemshaven in the province of Groningen and a site near Terneuzen in Zeeland.

From the perspective of the transmission system, Eemshaven is the most favourable option. TenneT states that 3.2 GW of new capacity can be connected there without additional investment beyond the network expansion already planned. Terneuzen, by contrast, requires significant measures. According to TenneT, connecting 3.2 GW of new nuclear capacity would require further extensive grid upgrades, or potentially redispatching at costs of up to hundreds of millions of euros annually.

The cabinet wants to decide on its preferred site by the end of 2026. A proposal for a formal siting decision is to follow in the first half of 2027.

The Netherlands follows the Czech construction model

For Czechia, the Dutch development is important above all as further confirmation that the private financing model for large nuclear units in Europe is receding into the background. In both countries, the state is taking on the role of principal investor and establishing a structure intended to reduce financing costs while enabling long-term management of the project.

The Netherlands is directly drawing inspiration from the Czech approach to an interest-free loan during construction. However, the Czech model for Dukovany is more developed and entails a broader transfer of construction and financial risks to the public sector.

The difference lies primarily in the institutional arrangement. The Netherlands is creating a separate company, NEO NL, which is to prepare, own and operate the project, whereas the Czech project is being implemented through EDU II, with the state still holding a dominant stake and with a possible increase in the state’s share to as much as 100% through the nationalisation of parent company ČEZ.

August 23, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, EUROPE, politics | 2 Comments

The Small (Modular Reactor) Short -Nuclear investors see “an industry bubble that is already deflating”

August 18, 2026, https://beyondnuclear.org/the-small-modular-reactor-short/

Nuclear investors see “an industry bubble that is already deflating”

Guess who’s making money from the alleged small modular reactor boom? Or rather, guess, who’s not making a profit? We’ve been calling the SMR schemes “crypto nukes” for a while, because they seemed like the same kind of scam as the crypto currency racket. But, it turns out, the SMR mirage has more in common with the US subprime mortgage scandal.

That debacle, which played out from 2007 to 2010, was immortalized in the excellent 2015 docudrama, The Big Short. It dramatized the true story of financial outsiders who realized that the US housing market was propped up on bad loans doomed to fail. By betting against those loans (the “short” of the title), before the market collapsed, they made themselves significant fortunes.

On August 18, the Financial Times(opens in new tab) ran a headline, “Short sellers reap $2bn profit as modular nuclear reactor stocks tumble.” (The article is behind a paywall, so we’ll paraphrase and quote it instead.)

It revealed how, predicting the “hype cycle” was about to collapse, and the fact that the three SMR companies in question — NuScale Power, Nano Nuclear and Oklo — were “lossmaking and have little or no revenue,” the short sellers pounced, reaping $2.1 billion in profits.

The article, replete with graphs showing plunging loss lines, paints a damning picture of an over-inflated industry with no actual there there. “A total of $30.3bn has been wiped off their collective market value since their peak in October last year amid growing concerns over the lack of immediate revenue and the long build-out timelines for the technology,” the Financial Times reported.

Beyond the three companies shorted, another of the close to 80 small reactor startup projects, X-energy, also “shed $5.8bn in market value since the surge that followed its initial public offering in April,” wrote Ramsey Hodgson, the FT reporter.

Predictably, the nuclear-promoting Breakthrough Institute tried to spin the whole thing as normal, with its nothing-to-see-here claim that the earlier over-inflation and current collapse of stock prices is “very typical of a company that is in this early, pre-consistent revenue phase,” the institute’s Adam Stein reassured the FT. Just birth pains, not a stillbirth, he appeared to insist.

But other financial experts interviewed for the story took a rather less rosy view. Enthusiasm for SMRs is waning now that it has become clear that most of the reactor startup companies have no revenue — and no reactors — to show for their efforts, and no sign of either on the horizon until at least 2030, an optimistic view to put it mildly.

Nano Nuclear has generated zero revenue and “posted a $14mn operating loss in the first quarter of the year,” the FT said. NuScale is facing a class action suit for defrauding investors after its plans collapsed. Oklo has yet to secure a regulatory license.

As we have repeatedly pointed out here at Beyond Nuclear, and as the FT reiterates, “timelines for delivery of the unproven reactors remain uncertain.” Or maybe not so uncertain. They simply won’t arrive at all.

August 22, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs | Leave a comment

USA government handing out $billions to X-energy and TerraPower for advanced nuclear reactors

X-energy, TerraPower share updates on advanced reactor projects

Mon, Aug 17, 2026, https://www.ans.org/news/2026-08-17/article-8297/xenergy-terrapower-share-updates-on-advanced-reactor-projects/

The two main players of the Department of Energy’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program, X-energy and TerraPower, have both announced significant developments in their projects to deploy advanced commercial-scale reactors.

X-energy to get another $1 billion: During its second-quarter earnings call on Thursday, CEO Clay Sell said the DOE notified X-energy that it would receive an additional $1 billion in cost-shared funding for its Long Mott project. The company wants to build four Xe-100 reactors at Dow’s UCC Seadrift Operations, a chemical production facility in Seadrift, Texas. It would be the first advanced reactor deployment of its kind at an industrial site in North America.

Combined with the $1 billion X-energy has already received from DOE, the company will have received roughly $2.15 billion for the Seadrift project, Sell said. X-energy will be required to follow the same cost-share requirements as in the earlier allocation…….

Highlighted other key second-quarter moments and developments for the company during the call, including the following:

Entering into long-term agreements for high-assay low-enriched uranium enrichment services with Centrus Energy Corp. and General Matter.
Entering into an agreement with SGL Carbon to expand manufacturing capacity for nuclear-grade graphite.
Receiving an $11 million economic development grant from Tennessee to support its TRISO-X fuel fabrication campus in Oak Ridge.
Acquiring roughly 70 acres adjacent to its Oak Ridge campus to expand its TRISO-X footprint.

With regard to Long Mott, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is expected to complete its construction permit review later this year, with a permit issuance decision likely in the first half of 2027, according to Sell. X-energy is also expected to submit its construction permit application to the NRC in the first half of next year for the Cascade Advanced Energy Facility project in Washington state with Amazon and Energy Northwest.

Lastly, an announcement of a 1-GW project with an unnamed utility is coming “in the near future,” Sell said.

TerraPower, South Korean companies reach deals: TerraPower is looking to strengthen its ties with South Korea and has reached agreements with Hyundai Engineering & Construction (HDEC) and SK Innovation to develop and commercialize the Natrium reactor in the United States, Korea, and select international markets. This comes after TerraPower officials—including founder and chair Bill Gates and president and CEO Chris Levesque—traveled to South Korea to meet with Prime Minister Seong-sook Han and leaders from the Export-Import Bank of Korea, HD Hyundai, HDEC, and SK Innovation.

Under the agreement reached with HDEC, the Korean company will be TerraPower’s engineering, procurement, and construction contractor and will build up to eight of its Natrium reactors with completion, price, and performance guarantees. TerraPower is currently constructing its first Natrium reactor—a 345-MWe sodium-cooled fast reactor with molten salt heat storage to temporarily boost power output to 500 MWe—in Kemmerer, Wyo.

TerraPower’s term-sheet agreement with SK Innovation clears a pathway for Korea’s first Natrium plant, along with plans to expand internationally. The two companies will explore opportunities to collaborate on engineering and digital innovation solutions, including digital twin technology and artificial intelligence, the news release said.

“Today marks a pivotal moment for TerraPower as we embark on a new chapter of international collaboration with Korea’s leading organizations,” Levesque said. “Combining TerraPower’s innovative advanced nuclear technology with Korea’s nuclear construction and operational expertise will strengthen our global cooperation and accelerate the deployment of a Natrium fleet that will transform the world’s energy landscape.”

August 22, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, USA | Leave a comment

Short sellers reap $2Bn profit as modular nuclear reactor stocks tumble

Unproven technology won investment from power-hungry AI
hyperscalers but has yet to deliver consistent revenues

The Financial Times, .Ramsay Hodgson in London, 19 Aug 26,
https://www.ft.com/content/a2f0e0f8-9350-4124-af77-62219e77e777

Short sellers have reaped large profits from betting against small modular nuclear reactor companies, as the collapse of the “hype cycle” that had sent their share prices soaring wipes billions off their market value.

Funds made an estimated $2.1bn shorting three stocks — US-listed NuScale Power, Nano Nuclear and Sam Altman-backed Oklo — over the past year, according to data provider S3 Partners.

The three companies, which are lossmaking and have little or no revenue, surged last year as investors raced to capitalise on growing interest in nuclear energy among AI hyperscalers looking for new sources of power. Regulatory changes and funding announcements from the Trump
administration also helped the sector.

But a total of $30.3bn has been wiped off their collective market value since their peak in October last year amid growing concerns over the lack of immediate revenue and the long build-out timelines for the technology.

“The stocks were overinflated in price, based on speculation,” said Adam Stein, director of nuclear energy innovation at the Breakthrough Institute, a climate and energy think-tank.

The sector went through a “textbook hype cycle” last year, he added. “[It is] very typical of a company that is in this early pre-consistent revenue phase.”

Small modular nuclear reactors are assembled from modules built in factories to save time and
money, and produce around 300MW or less, compared with more than 1,000MW for traditional
reactors.

Only two commercial SMRs are currently operable — in Russia and China, with more than 80 designs in various stages of development.

A key test of investor appetite towards the nuclear sector is expected in the coming weeks, when Holtec International and Westinghouse, two US-based companies with SMR divisions, are expected to list.

Short sellers have piled into bets against the companies based on a view that their shares rose to unsustainable levels, driven by a limited supply of publicly traded stocks and a focus on the potential demand from AI, rather than the time and capital expenditure required to commercialise the technology.

“On the one hand there was some support from the government, and no one wants to bet against Trump, and on the other there was this whole AI [demand] story which everyone was really bullish about [last year],” said Christian Putz, founder and chief executive of investment firm ARR
Investment Partners, who has previously shorted Oklo but has since unwound that position.

Around 18 per cent of Oklo and NuScale’s outstanding shares remain out on loan — a proxy for short selling — while almost 30 per cent of Nano’s are on loan, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Meanwhile, X-energy has shed $5.8bn in market value since the surge that followed its initial public offering in April. Short sellers have earned an estimated $67mn from bets against thecompany since mid-May, according to S3 Partners. The company, which is backed by Amazon and
Ken Griffin and has yet to receive full regulatory approval to build its helium-cooled reactor, has 9 per cent of its shares out on loan.

“The sentiment has changed this year, people are far more critical,” said Putz. These companies “have almost zero revenue for the foreseeable future and, on top of that, there are very high capex [capital expenditure] requirements”.

Demand for energy in the US is set to soar over the coming decade, in part due to the rapid development of power-hungry data centres by AI hyperscalers. According to data from BloombergNEF, US data centre power demand is set to climb from 34.7 gigawatts in 2024 to 106GW by 2035.

Big Tech is increasingly turning to the emergent SMR technology to meet its future power needs. In January, Meta struck a deal with Oklo and Bill Gates-backed TerraPower, in which it agreed to make an upfront cash injection to support development of the reactor technology.

The Trump administration vocally backed the nuclear sector last year, pledging to cut red tape and invest tens of billions of dollars to build new reactors and reopen old ones to generate the to “win” the global AI race. In June, the Department of Energy announced $17.5bn of loans to help rebuild the US nuclear supply chain.

However, timelines for delivery of the unproven reactors remain uncertain. Analysts at BNP Paribas have expressed concerns over shortages of high-assay low-enriched uranium, a special type of nuclear fuel vital for SMRs. The earliest some will come online is mid-to-late 2028, if manufacturers are able to speed up delivery while also satisfying regulators, although the majority will arrive during the 2030s, said Stein at the Breakthrough Institute.

NuScale, which reported a $96.7mn loss in the first half of 2026, faces a shareholder class-action lawsuit alleging it misled investors, to which it must respond by September 8. It is building a modular light-water reactor based on a more conventional pressurised-water design.

Nano Nuclear — whose microreactors are in the development stage — has never generated any revenue and posted a $14mn operating loss in the first quarter of the year.

Oklo hopes to deliver commercial power to customers from its liquid sodium rather than water- cooled Aurora reactors. US energy secretary Chris Wright was previously a board member. It has yet to secure a full licence from the US nuclear regulator to build and operate its reactor.

“What we have seen in 2025 seems to me like an industry bubble that is already deflating,” said Siegfried Eggert, chief executive of activist short seller Grizzly Research, who has no short positions against the companies.

“I believe most knowledgeable investors understood for a while that the valuations seemed ratherextended given the timeline of this industry,” he added.

Nano Nuclear said the rise or fall in the share price of companies said little about the success of the underlying business and disputed the “hype cycle” characterisation. Oklo said the company had made “tangible progress” over the past year and expected commercial operation of its Aurora reactor to begin in 2028.

NuScale declined to comment. X-energy did not respond to a request for comment.

August 21, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors | Leave a comment

How Finland Destroyed Itself For NATO

Nate Bear Do Not Panic, August 19, 2026

Finland, often known as the happiest country in the world, now has the highest unemployment rate in Europe, demand for food aid has exploded by more than 70%, and homelessness, which had been declining for more than ten years, has increased 34% in just two years. Conditions in the country are so bad that almost 20% of Finland’s population is now considered at risk of poverty,

Once considered the standard bearer for the good life, for competent governance and a strong social state, Finland is unravelling at warp speed. What has gone wrong so quickly?

In three words, NATO, austerity and Russophobia.

All are linked. Finland is slashing its social state to the bone to meet NATO’s 5% GDP military spending target, a target which became necessary after the country abandoned neutrality and swapped the welfare state for the warfare state after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The speed of the collapse has been stunning.

In 2019, the at-risk of poverty rate was 11% and by 2022 the country was on course to hit record low unemployment.

Everything changed after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the country’s hysterical over-reaction to an imagined threat. This is not just my judgement. A number of Finnish academics, including Heikki Patomäki, professor of world politics at the University of Helsinki, have said that the conditions simply did not warrant Finland joining NATO, cutting off its economically valuable links to Russia and militarising its border.

The facts support this.

At the time of its invasion of Ukraine, Russia had just a couple of thousand troops spread out across various bases on its 1,340 km border with Finland. The bases were home to handful of missile defence batteries and a few dozen tanks. Many of the troops and much of the equipment was subsequently deployed to Ukraine, leaving the bases empty. There was obviously no invasion threat, and Putin in May 2022 emphasised this in a phone call to Finland’s then-president Sauli Niinistö.

But by this point, the Russophobia and hysteria for NATO membership had begun to take on a life of its own. Sanna Marin, Finland’s young female prime minister at the time, and a liberal media darling, was a particularly effective saleswoman. Despite claiming in the days following Russia’s invasion that there was no threat, her tone became decidedly more hawkish in the months that followed. She said Russia “poses a threat to all of us” and began talking like a war-time leader, saying in September 2022 that “Russia may challenge Finland, blackmail us and threaten us, but we will not give in.” Bear in mind, Russia at this point had practically zero troops and equipment on its western border with Finland. The Russian threat she was invoking was entirely imagined, an hallucination.

Nevertheless, in April 2023, Finland joined NATO, just days after Marin was defeated by the right and far-right in an election where the policy choice on Russia was one of uniformity, with the conservatives, the ethno-nationalists and Marin’s social democrats all singing the same tune.

After her defeat, Marin scuttled off to work for Tony Blair, while the new conservative-nationalist government set about decimating Finland’s welfare state to pay for the privilege of NATO membership.

The Finnish government is now a substantial way through its programme to cut €9 billion of public spending by 2027, including large reductions to social security (including housing, child, and unemployment benefits) healthcare, education, and municipal funding budgets, while it also increasing taxes on average earners. Cuts to healthcare provision have been particularly brutal, including a large reduction in hospital staff numbers, elderly care and disability services while redefining “minimum service obligations” to justify providing patients with lower quality care. The government has also slashed funding for organisations working on peace and initiatives which would address the new cold war-style relations with Russia.

In addition, the new government fully closed all the border crossings with Russia that Marin’s Social Democrats had partially closed, and began building large sections of a border fence, securitised with troops, night vision cameras and motion detectors.

And while the entire country is now suffering as a result of the pro-war paranoia that has gripped Finland’s leaders, its border towns have taken a particular beating.

Before the war, Russians routinely crossed to shop, eat, stay in hotels and visit holiday properties they owned in the towns and villages along the border. That has all gone away. One estimate cited in a recent Finnish study puts the loss of Russian tourism in the border region of South Karelia at as much as €1 million per day. Unemployment in some border regions is now approaching 20%.

The border also used to be an important commercial gateway between the EU and Russia, but its closure eliminated much of the road freight and transit business. The OECD says eastern Finland has gone from being an “economic gateway” to a “security barrier,” a transformation which of course it praises rather than mourns, claiming that confronting Russia is important not only for Finland but for Europe as a whole.

Then there are the commodities like gas and timber.

In 2021 Russia accounted for about 92% of Finland’s gas imports. Finland has replaced all of that with a mix of sources, including far more expensive LNG from the US, meaning that Finland, after having some of the lowest gas prices in Europe, now has the highest gas prices in Europe.

As for timber, in 2021, 70% of Finland’s wood imports came from Russia, and this wood supplied approximately 10% of all the raw wood used by Finnish industry. Pulp mills in Finland subsequently went bust and the industry faced shortages which persist to this day after the EU, with Finland’s support, banned countries from buying wood from Russia.

Finland’s decisions, both independently and collectively through the EU, have immiserated many millions of Finnish citizens. Yet at the same time as the country is slashing the social state, it is spending more money than ever, around $8.1 billion in 2025, on weapons of war to fight a threat that previously didn’t exist. A threat that Finland has made real by its new-found anti-Russia NATO militancy, with Putin promising to respond to Finland’s border build-up.

And among the beneficiaries of a new tooled-up and aggressive Finland are the arms dealers of the Israeli apartheid-genocide complex, which in 2024 sold Finland its questionably functional “David’s Sling” air defence system for €316 million. Finland has also bought tank and ship missiles from the Israeli company Rafael which supplied most of the weapons and equipment used to commit the genocide of Gaza. The Finnish government said Israel’s genocide of Gaza would not stop it buying weapons from the country, a position which is par for the course among the morally bankrupt leaders of Europe.

Finland is also spending €10 billion on US fighter jets, and a few billion euros on missiles and glide bombs to fire from those jets, as well as giving Ukraine €2.3 billion in direct military aid over three years.

It’s all utterly deranged, but completely unsurprising given the Russophobia which pervades all European halls of power and has become embedded on the continent.

Finland has effectively taken a scythe to all the things that made it, in the eyes of many, the envy of the world. The country has trashed the model which delivered such a high standard of living, a model which included neutrality and good relations with Russia.

Instead the country has enacted a self-imposed structural adjustment programme to pay for membership of a military alliance it didn’t need, with that membership creating an enemy that didn’t exist, an enemy which happens to be a nuclear superpower with which it shares a huge border.

The price has been, and will continue to be a steep one, and it is a price ordinary Finns will be paying for a long time.

But it is not just in Finland.

We are watching, across Europe, the shameful replacement of the welfare state with the warfare state while the merchants of genocide and death laugh all the way to the bank.

August 21, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, Finland | 1 Comment

$26.8 billion nuclear refurbishment to begin in Pickering early next year

By Glenn Hendry, July 24, 2026

A nearly $27 billion plan to refurbish four reactors at the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station to get nearly four decades more service out of them is set to begin early next year, with all four units to be taken offline in September.

The Ontario government gave the green light to the refurbishment in November, with the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission’s approval still required.

The commission previously had already approved a short extension of units 5 to 8 at the Pickering nuclear plant to the end of 2026.

The renewal will start with Unit 5, pending approval, while the project team makes progress on the ground with construction of a new 200,000-square-foot retube feeder and boiler replacement training and mock-up facility, using experience gained from a similar project built for the refurbishment of the nearby Darlington plant.

The hub will be “critical” to training more than 2,800 skilled trades staff ahead of the refurbishment, Ontario Power Generation said on its website.

The new facility will feature detailed mock-ups of the Pickering reactor design and its components. It will also provide a training mock-up of Pickering’s lower boiler assembly, a unique aspect to the refurbishment.

The project team is also constructing other buildings to support the project, including the Common Services Building, a two-storey, 38,000-square-foot modular building that will be used by vendor partners.

August 19, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, Canada | Leave a comment

France’s Power Prices Jump 22% as Heatwave Trims Nuclear Output

By Michael Kern – Aug 11, 2026,
https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Frances-Power-Prices-Jump-22-as-Heatwave-Trims-Nuclear-Output.html

The new heatwave in France is curbing nuclear power generation in Europe’s biggest nuclear electricity supplier and leading to spiking day-ahead power prices.

France’s day-ahead power prices soared by as much as 21.8% to $164.39 (142.5 euros) per megawatt hour (MWh) on Tuesday morning local time, per LSEG data cited by Reuters, as nuclear power generation is expected to be curbed at the mid-day peak on Wednesday.

Data by nuclear power plants operator EDF showed that France would see its nuclear generation cut by 7.3 gigawatts (GW) on Wednesday, equal to 12% of the total capacity, amid this week’s heatwave which is at least the fifth extremely hot wave to grip the country since June.

Power prices in France, where nuclear energy accounts for about 70% of the electricity mix, are now being pressured upwards by reduced nuclear output as water levels in rivers used for cooling reactors are low and/or very warm.

Additional upward pressure comes from the increase in power consumption during these heatwaves.

France has already had to resort to curbing nuclear power generation amid the prolonged and intense heatwaves this summer.

In the middle of last month, France’s nuclear power generation was slashed by 6.4 GW amid a prolonged and intense heatwave that hiked river temperatures and limited the ability of the power plants to use the water to cool reactors.

The heatwaves have also affected nuclear power output in central and eastern Europe, where Hungary and Romania this month were forced to shut down reactors at their respective only nuclear power plants, due to the lowest water level of the Danube river in 90 years.

Hungary saw one of the turbines at the Paks nuclear resume electricity production on Monday as the Danube water level inched up thanks to rainfall in Austria.

Romania, for its part, last week blasted a rock formation and sank barges filled with rocks to deviate the Danube’s flow and secure enough water for cooling the reactors of its only nuclear power plant at Cernavoda.

August 15, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, climate change, France | Leave a comment

Sizewell: multi-million euro contract awarded to Halton Wales

A major contract has been awarded to Halton Wales, part of Halton Group,
to supply specialist high-integrity HVAC dampers for the Sizewell C nuclear
power station project. The contract was said to represent a major strategic
and commercial milestone for Halton. Valued in the several tens of millions
of euros, it is one of the most significant project awards in the company’s
history. The contract builds on Halton’s successful contribution to the
Hinkley Point C project.

Insider Media 14th Aug 2026,
https://www.insidermedia.com/news/south-east/halton-selected-to-support-sizewell-c-nuclear-power-station-scheme-we-are-proud-to-contribute-to-a-project-of-national-importance

August 15, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, UK | Leave a comment

Sizewell – The bizarre public-private finance arrangement

The bizarre public-private finance arrangement for the construction of
Sizewell C is already paying off – for the lawyers. Linklaters was
advising the Government. Taxpayers provide 90% of the funding while private
investors including EDF and Centrica get control and eventually trouser
double digit returns. No wonder Linklaters is pleased. A government
contract initially worth £16m had by last July become £32m.

Private Eye 14th Aug 2026,
https://www.private-eye.co.uk/

August 15, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, UK | Leave a comment

Nuclear and free market capitalism aren’t compatible.

That was the deliberately provocative headline I used in 2023. Three years later, the financing structures actually being assembled for new reactors have made the underlying point harder to dismiss.

A gigawatt-scale reactor commits billions for years before it earns operating revenue. Every delay extends the period in which financing costs accumulate inside one enormous asset.
Hinkley Point C has demonstrated what carrying that exposure looks like.
Britain’s response at Sizewell C wasn’t to find private investors
suddenly willing to accept the same construction risk more cheaply. It was to redesign the financial structure so government, regulated customers and public backstops carry substantially more of it.

Michael Bernard 10th Aug 2026
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7492466736768765952/

August 14, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, UK | Leave a comment

Cost creep or cost leap? The staggering price of nuclear

In the fourth and final part of our serialisation from LINDA PENTZ GUNTER’S book No to Nuclear, she asks how anyone can see nuclear as value for money given its constantly ballooning costs.

Cost creep is a universal affliction in the
nuclear power industry and sometimes it isn’t so much creep as leap. The
two-reactor nuclear power plant at Hinkley Point C on the UK coast went
from an estimated $19bn to $26bn, then $35bn, $40bn and now $59bn! By the
time you read this, the number will likely be even higher. That makes the
plant — consisting of two evolutionary power reactors (EPRs) — the
second most expensive building in the world, after the Great Mosque of
Mecca, which cost more than $100bn. And the most expensive power plant
ever.

Morning Star 12th Aug 2026, https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/article/cost-creep-or-cost-leap-staggering-price-nuclear

August 14, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs | Leave a comment

Economist Baker Explains: AI Bubble Is About To Burst

August 10, 2026, Taya Graham and Stephen Janis TRNN

Economist Dean Baker (Center for Economic and Policy Research, author of Rigged and creator of the AI Bubble Monitor) joins Taya Graham and Stephen Janis to break down why the productivity data doesn’t match the hype, why Palantir’s CEO seemed to be panicking on live TV, why Bernie Sanders’ AI sovereign wealth fund idea might backfire, and what signs to watch for if this bubble bursts.

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors.

Hello, my name is Taya Graham and welcome to the Inequality Watch Report, a show that examines government policy and action through the lens of extreme economic inequality, the existential issue of our time. Today, we’re going to discuss a technology which we’ve been told will transform our lives, an invention that has been touted as the ultimate arbiter of our collective futures, whether we like it or not. Of course, I’m talking about artificial intelligence, but with the promise also comes doubt and questions and most of all, a lack of clarity on how we’ll impact the working people of this country. AI leaders have casually warned us that their products could eliminate 40 to 50% of white collar jobs more than the losses in the Great Depression. They’ve promised that technology will be so disruptive that even staunch capitalists have discussed providing a UBI or universal basic income for Americans who will be left out.

They’ve borrowed money at such predigious rates to fund data centers that even Wall Street is beginning to just say no. And now some of the biggest names are saying it’s not working out as planned and an America’s already historic wealth imbalance and government hamstrung by the self-interested impulses of a single man. And you have a situation that could brew a toxic stew of making the already rich even richer and leaving the rest of us even further behind amid all the societal chaos and upheaval. And are the cracks just starting to show?

Just this week, one of technology’s greatest apostles made accusations that AI has become a nemesis for his business and others. And capitalists who have gladly loaned billions to build data centers throughout the country are now starting to push back at the ever increasing demand for cash. Of course, the point of this show is to examine this topic through the lens of inequality and how it affects our political and social institutions and what it means for working people.

Stephen Janis:

I think in a way, this is the greatest American kind of ripoff in the sense that they’ve spent about the past four or five years mining all our data, taking everything we posted online, and they’re regurgitating it back to us and want to charge us for it in some way.

And so to me, I think what is most missing for me besides the promise of huge economic disruption is what the value proposition is for the American people. I mean, they took everything that we wrote and now they want to repackage it and sell it as some sort of deity that we have to worship. And so I’m a little worried, a little worried, a lot worried that we’re all going to be casualties of a great wealth concentrator, which remember, OpenAI was supposed to be a nonprofit. Now it’s a for-profit company. All these huge IPOs, I’m afraid they’re just taking everything we’ve created, sell it back to us and become even richer, and there’ll be a greater concentrate of wealth and power…………………………………..

Dean Baker:

I think to a very large extent, we have people who are really good at hype. People like Sam Altman, of course, Elon Musk, absolute master of hype. These are the Donald Trumps of the business world. They’re selling this stuff and they’ve been very successful. I mean, Elon Musk just had his SpaceX initial public offering, which is primarily AI. I mean, that’s their own assessment. I’m not trying to attribute things to them.

If you read their registration statement, they say 90% of their expected market is in AI. So SpaceX is an AI company. So they’re looking to get rich by this. And I don’t mean necessarily because they’re going to have huge profits. They have huge stock prices. So Elon Musk became a trillionaire, not because SpaceX has enormous profits. It actually loses money hand over fist. He became a trillionaire because the stock price is ridiculously high.

So step one, is it creating inequality? Absolutely. By a stock bubble, bloated bubble. Now, in terms of what it delivers, they’re saying this, is it going to have massive impact? I’m sure it will. And the model I look to is the internet. Had massive impact. Does that mean that it’s going to lead to mass unemployment? Well, a lot of people lost their jobs to the internet. I mean, Amazon put a lot of small sellers out of retailers out of business………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Stephen Janis:

But these people are hyping valuations. They’re borrowing billions and billions of dollars, I think, based on a higher rate of return. I mean, is this like a house of cards? I mean, they’re hyping this over and over again saying it’s going to be transformative. But now you’re saying the impact so far has not been. Does that put at risk all these billions of dollars they’ve thrown at this problem?………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

bubbles can have very bad consequences. So that’s why I’m very worried about this one. They’re selling this and Elon Musk undoubtedly is stuffing his pockets. And Sam Altman and the others, they’re stuffing their pockets. But no, I don’t see that these stock prices make sense. And when does the music stop? I don’t know. Both previous bubbles went way longer than I expected them to. But all I could say is the sooner it bursts, the better it will be for the country.

…………………………………………………………………………….I was saying we want stock investors or we think they should be knowledgeable. They aren’t. And people were spending based on their stock wealth. So you had a lot of people that were saying, “Oh, I had money in the NASDAQ and just doubled,” which it might well have. A lot of people owned stocks in the NASDAQ and over two years they would’ve doubled. So they said, “Oh, I’m going to buy a new car, get a bigger house, go on a big vacation.” Well, when those prices plummeted, that consumption stopped. So it was a very, very big hit to the economy

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….It’s like using paper. Oh, I used five reams of paper today. And you go, okay, great. What’d you do? I mean, that’s kind of nuts, but that’s what they were literally doing. So you’ve had companies looking to cut back hugely on the AI they use because they want to see that they’re actually getting something for it. And in many cases, their conclusion was that they weren’t. The other part of the story that he’s raising, Carp is raising, is they’re worried. They don’t know what’s happening with their data. So when you’re running your programs through Anthropic, through OpenAI and whoever else, they have your data. ………………..

They don’t want to give that away for nothing to Anthropic, to OpenAI, whoever. And they don’t know whether they are or they aren’t………………..

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. increasingly the companies, and these are big companies, these are Meta, Alphabet, the biggest companies in the world. They’re having to borrow. So even though they’re very profitable, they’re undertaking such massive investments that they’re having to borrow. And you’re seeing a very interesting story here that investors in bonds are starting to get worried. We actually saw this with SpaceX. It was really striking.

One of my AI bubble monitors was about this, that SpaceX bonds are being sold at a discount, meaning that bond buyers see a risk that it actually could default, that they might actually go bankrupt. So here on the one hand, you have stock investors going, “Oh, SpaceX is going to be the most profitable company in the history of the world.” You have bond investors going, “It might go bankrupt. It might not be able to pay its bills.” So I would look at the bond market and it seems to be. I recently saw some data showing that there’s much less interest in Alphabet, Meta, the hyperscalers are called, that are involved in building the data centers for AI………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..https://scheerpost.com/2026/08/10/economist-baker-explains-ai-bubble-is-about-to-burst/

August 13, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs | Leave a comment

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