Uranium and the Nuclear Cycle
Yellowcake, conversion, enrichment, fuel fabrication — the four-stage cycle that determines reactor economics
On September 20, 2024, Constellation Energy (CEG) and Microsoft (MSFT) announced a 20-year power purchase agreement to restart Unit 1 of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania, decommissioned in 2019, to provide carbon-free electricity for Microsoft's AI data center operations per joint press release. The plant — to be renamed the Crane Clean Energy Center — would supply approximately 835 MW of dispatchable, 24/7 firm clean power. The announcement followed a similar Talen Energy / Amazon Web Services arrangement at Talen's Susquehanna nuclear plant (early 2024, providing ~960 MW to AWS data centers in Pennsylvania) and Google's investment in advanced SMR developer Kairos Power for next-generation small modular reactors.
The hyperscale-AI / nuclear-power axis emerged as one of the most consequential structural shifts in U.S. energy policy in 2023-2024, driven by hyperscale operators' need for firm dispatchable carbon-free electricity at scale and pace that renewables alone cannot provide on multi-year horizons.
That is the opening. Finishing a lesson is where it stops being interesting and starts being useful: the full lesson runs to 7 sections and ends with 6 practice questions. A free account is what opens the rest, and the other 255 lessons in the Academy with it. No card.
What this lesson covers
- 1Spot vs long-term contracts — how uranium actually trades
- 2The hyperscale-AI / nuclear-power axis
- 3Uranium fuel cost flow-through to reactor economics
- 4Nuclear fuel cycle — major participants by stage
- 5September 20, 2024 — Microsoft / Constellation 20-year PPA at Three Mile Island restart
- 6Where to see this on the platform
- 7Summary