Americore Resources (TSXV: AMCO)
Drilling Value in the Silver State
The artificial intelligence boom is rewriting the global energy playbook, thrusting nuclear power back to the center of major economies’ industrial strategies as intermittent solar and wind generation fails to keep pace with surging demand for reliable, zero-carbon baseload electricity. China, the U.S. and Canada are locked in a three-way race spanning both conventional large-scale reactors and next-generation small modular designs, competing to shape the future of a nuclear industry entering its most significant expansion in decades.
On the front lines of traditional nuclear capacity, the divergence between China and the U.S. has grown stark, according to the latest reactor construction tally from Goldman Sachs. China tops the global ranking with 40 reactors currently under construction — nearly half of the world’s total — dwarfing the pipelines of India and Russia, its closest rivals.
Powered by centralized policy direction and a fully domesticated construction supply chain, China delivers a new nuclear plant in roughly six years on average. By comparison, Georgia’s Plant Vogtle — the only new U.S. reactor completed in decades — took more than a decade to finish, plagued by years of delays and billions in cost overruns. No new reactors have broken ground in the U.S. since Vogtle entered service in 2024.
The scale gap is staggering: in the time it took the U.S. to bring just the Vogtle facility online, China added 34 gigawatts of nuclear capacity. With advanced nuclear development flagged as a core priority in its 15th Five-Year Plan, China is on track to dominate global capacity additions over the next five years and boast the world’s most dynamic nuclear industry by 2035, noted Damien Ma, lead energy analyst at Gavekal Technologies.
To reverse decades of stagnation, the Trump administration has rolled out a $17.5 billion low-interest loan program to fund utilities’ purchases of Westinghouse Electric Co.’s AP1000 reactors. The initiative backs five two-unit projects — 10 reactors total — with a goal of trimming construction timelines by up to three years and bringing all units online by 2035. Energy Secretary Chris Wright has framed the plan as the launch of “the next American nuclear renaissance.”
Yet market skepticism runs deep. Decades of dwindling construction expertise, layers of regulatory red tape and a hollowed-out domestic supply chain have left structural barriers that federal financing alone cannot quickly resolve.
As large-scale reactor projects face persistent cost and timeline headwinds, small modular reactors (SMRs) have emerged as the defining next frontier of nuclear competition — and it is Canada that has seized the early lead in the Western world.
Construction is officially under way at Ontario’s Darlington New Nuclear Project, where crews recently completed the foundation pour for the first BWRX-300 unit designed by GE Vernova. The CAD$20.9 billion development will house four 300-megawatt units, with the first reactor targeted for commercial service in 2030. Once operational, it will be the first grid-scale commercial SMR connected to a major power network in the G7.
Canada’s SMR ambitions extend far beyond Ontario. Provinces including Saskatchewan, New Brunswick and Alberta have all rolled out research and deployment roadmaps, targeting use cases from powering mine sites and oil sands operations to replacing diesel generators in remote northern communities. The technology’s factory-built, transportable design is uniquely suited to Canada’s geographically dispersed energy needs, while giving the country a proven reference project to market to other Western economies.
Both the U.S. and China are making heavy investments to close the SMR gap. The U.S. Department of Energy has committed up to $5.5 billion in dedicated SMR funding. Westinghouse has unveiled a 300-megawatt scaled-down version of its AP1000 reactor, priced at roughly $1 billion per unit — a steep discount to full-size plants. Bill Gates’ TerraPower broke ground on its inaugural SMR project in Wyoming in 2024, and tech giants including Google and Amazon are positioning to deploy small reactors to power their energy-intensive AI data centers.
China, meanwhile, is among a small handful of countries already operating commercial SMRs, and is pressing ahead with advanced research into molten salt reactors and nuclear fusion. Its streamlined approval processes and coordinated industrial policy have given it an early edge across nearly all next-generation nuclear segments.
Underpinning the entire global nuclear buildout is an unprecedented surge in electricity demand driven by the AI boom. Hyperscalers are on track to spend roughly $800 billion on data center capital expenditure this year alone, a wave of investment coinciding with industrial reshoring and broader grid electrification. The combined pressure has laid bare the limitations of intermittent renewables and solidified nuclear power’s status as a critical source of always-on clean power for the digital age.
Each of the three competing nations brings distinct strengths to the race. China holds an undisputed lead in construction speed, cost competitiveness and deployment scale, backed by a fully integrated domestic supply chain. The U.S. brings deep technological heritage, sophisticated private capital markets and global commercial reach, giving it significant upside if regulatory and logistical hurdles are resolved. Canada has carved out a unique niche as the first Western nation to deliver a commercial SMR, positioning itself as a benchmark for Western nuclear innovation.
For the near term, China’s lead in overall capacity growth looks set to persist. But over the longer horizon, winning the battle for global nuclear dominance will depend on far more than raw construction numbers. Breakthroughs in next-generation technology commercialization, control over global industry standards and success in overseas export markets will ultimately define which nation holds sway. What started as a race to add megawatts has evolved into a full-spectrum contest spanning technology, supply chains, regulation and market access — and the final shape of the global nuclear order remains very much up for grabs.
