Goldman Puts 46 GW of SMRs on the Map, Adding 62 Million Pounds to Uranium Demand

Goldman Puts 46 GW of SMRs on the Map, Adding 62 Million Pounds to Uranium Demand Goldman's first formal inclusion of small modular reactors lifts its 2045 uranium demand forecast 17%, reframing a market trading in the mid-to-high $80s per pound. Goldman Sachs has formally incorporated small modular reactors into its uranium supply and demand framework for the first time, projecting cumulative SMR deployments of nearly 46 gigawatts by 2045. The addition lifts the bank's 2045 nuclear generation forecast by roughly 6% and adds an estimated 62 million pounds of uranium demand, a 17% upside to its prior long-term estimates.^3,4 That revision matters because uranium spot prices are already holding in the mid-to-high $80s per pound, with term pricing near $90 per pound, at a moment when supply is concentrated in a small number of state-linked producers. Stacking another 62 million pounds of incremental demand onto a commodity sourced predominantly from Kazakhstan, Canada and a handful of other jurisdictions changes the risk calculus for long-dated supply contracts.⁴ The U.S. government has framed its ambitions in stark terms. Federal targets call for nuclear capacity to rise from roughly 100 gigawatts in 2024 to 400 gigawatts by 2050, a quadrupling that would require sustained uranium procurement at a scale the market has not seen. Bank of America has put a $10 trillion market opportunity figure on the sector, though that figure spans the full supply chain rather than uranium mining alone.² Supply concentration is acute. In 2024, Canada's Cameco produced approximately 17% of global uranium output, second only to Kazakhstan's Kazatomprom at 21%. With Orano sitting at 11%, the three together account for roughly half of world production, leaving the market exposed to any operational or geopolitical disruption among a very small group of producers.² Cameco's position extends beyond mining. The company holds a 49% stake in Westinghouse, the engineering firm designing its own SMR. On Wednesday (2026-05-21), Westinghouse was named as part of an $80 billion agreement with the U.S. government to build new reactors for AI-linked deployment, a deal that blurs the line between energy infrastructure and data center policy.² The AI angle is moving capital at speed. Fluence Energy shares closed at $24.16 on Thursday (2026-05-08), up 98.2% in a single week after the company disclosed master supply agreements with two unnamed hyperscalers and a record $5.6 billion backlog. The stock has since pulled back and sits roughly 39% below its year-to-date high, but the episode illustrated how quickly investors re-rate power supply names when hyperscaler demand becomes concrete.¹ Quick Read Capital has been rotating into nuclear and renewable baseload generation as reliable solutions to data center power constraints. The framing from that corner of the market is less about decarbonisation and more about reliability: baseload generation that cannot be switched off when a data center runs around the clock.¹ Goldman's inclusion of SMRs follows the World Nuclear Association's demand projection of a 28% increase by 2030 and more than 100% by 2040. Those figures have circulated for years without moving the uranium price much. What may be different now is a firm institutional framework: a major bank embedding SMRs into its commodity model changes how counterparties price long-term supply agreements.^2,4 The gap between near-term spot prices and long-term demand projections is where the trade sits. Uranium in the mid-to-high $80s per pound reflects current reactor restarts and some speculative positioning, but not 46 gigawatts of SMR deployment. Most SMR projects remain years from commissioning. The demand Goldman is now pricing exists on a 2045 horizon, and the path from here to there runs through regulatory approvals, construction timelines and financing conditions that remain unresolved.⁴ The immediate signal to watch is whether utilities and state-level data center procurement agreements translate into signed long-term uranium offtake contracts. Term pricing near $90 per pound is already above spot, a structure that suggests some buyers are locking in supply. If SMR project announcements accelerate through the second half of 2026, that term premium could widen faster than Goldman's model implies.⁴