So, NuScale is the "Tesla of nuclear"? Give me a break.
Every few years, Wall Street needs a new story to sell. A new messiah. First, it was dot-coms that would change the world (they did, but most of the stocks went to zero). Then it was cannabis stocks, then EV startups that were all supposedly the "next Tesla." Now, the geniuses in finance have anointed their new king: small modular reactors, with NuScale Power (SMR) wearing the crown.
The stock has more than tripled this year. Why Is NuScale Power Stock Blasting Higher? Because they signed a big "deal" with the Tennessee Valley Authority and the U.S. Army suddenly decided it wants to stick tiny nuclear reactors on its bases. The market, in its infinite wisdom, saw this and decided a company with zero revenue and a history of canceled projects is worth a cool $6 billion.
This isn't investing. This is a lottery ticket with a press release attached.
The Hype Train's New Engine: Government Money
Let's look at the catalysts, shall we? First, the TVA deal. NuScale and its partner ENTRA1 inked a "historic" 6 GW deployment agreement. It's being touted as the largest SMR project in U.S. history. Sounds impressive, right? Except this isn't a firm purchase order. It's a plan. A roadmap. A series of feasibility studies and financing hurdles that need to be cleared over the next few years. It's like announcing you're going to build the world's tallest skyscraper and selling tickets before you've even poured the foundation.
Then you have the U.S. Army's "Project Janus." Army Secretary Dan Driscoll stood on a stage and said, "We’re going to need power like we have never needed it before…this is our first big step toward pushing forward nuclear energy for our country."
Translation: We, the military, are about to throw a firehose of taxpayer money at a sector we know very little about, hoping something sticks. This is supposed to be a good thing? The Army is a logistics and defense organization, not a venture capital firm for bleeding-edge energy tech. What happens when the first project runs 300% over budget, which offcourse it will? Does anyone seriously believe a government program is the thing that will de-risk this technology? It's just more fuel for the speculative fire.
This whole thing feels like a solution desperately searching for a problem that justifies its insane valuation. Sure, AI data centers need power. But are they really going to sign multi-billion dollar deals with a company that hasn't even built its first commercial plant? A company whose CEO admits they haven't even secured a U.S. data-center customer yet?
Let's Talk About Reality for a Second
Okay, so NuScale has the only SMR design approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. That's something. It’s a head start. But a head start in a marathon doesn't mean much if you run out of water a few miles in.
And NuScale is burning through cash—about $95 million a quarter. They have no revenue. Their first flagship project in Idaho? Canceled. Scrapped in 2023 after the cost estimates nearly doubled. This is a bad sign. No, "bad" doesn't cover it—this is a five-alarm, flashing red warning light that everyone is choosing to ignore because the stock chart goes up.
The stock is trading at a forward price-to-sales ratio of around 85x. For a company with no sales! It's pure insanity. It's like paying supercar prices for a blueprint of a car that's never been built, from a company whose last attempt to build a go-kart ended in a spectacular crash.
Even the Wall Street analysts, the ones who are usually the last to call out a bubble, are waving yellow flags. The consensus rating is "Hold," and their average price target is somewhere around $40. The stock is currently trading around $55. Read that again. The professionals are basically saying, "This thing is worth 30% less than what you're paying for it right now."
And it’s not just NuScale. Look at Oklo, another microreactor startup. Its stock is up over 500% this year. It's a mania. Then again, maybe I'm the crazy one. Maybe this time it is different...
And Then There's the Competition
While the meme stock crowd is piling into NuScale, the 800-pound gorilla in the room, GE Vernova, is quietly doing its thing. They have their own SMR, the BWRX-300, and they're also working with the TVA. They're already building one in Canada. They have a massive global footprint, actual revenue streams, and decades of experience in the nuclear industry.
But GE Vernova is boring. It's a legacy company. It has a struggling wind turbine business weighing it down. It doesn't have that shiny, new-car smell that speculators crave. So its stock performance, while impressive, pales in comparison to the pure-play hype machines.
This is the classic market setup. Investors are ignoring the profitable, diversified giant in favor of the speculative startup with a good story. We've seen this movie before, and it usually doesn't end well for the people holding the story stock when the music stops. Will NuScale eventually build reactors and make money? Maybe. But does that justify its current valuation? Not a chance in hell.
Just Another PowerPoint Stock
At the end of the day, NuScale feels less like the "Tesla of nuclear" and more like the Nikola of nuclear. It’s a company powered by promises, government press conferences, and a whole lot of investor hope. The technology is fascinating, and the need for clean, reliable power is real. I'm not denying that. But the chasm between a promising idea and a profitable, scaled business is littered with the corpses of companies that had great stories but couldn't execute. Right now, NuScale is all story. Wake me up when they actually sell a reactor and plug it into the grid. Until then, this is just another PowerPoint stock with a ticker symbol attached.