Dear Friend,

The federal government rents out desert land for energy development at a base rate of two dollars an acre.

Two dollars.

At recent auctions, companies bid $412 an acre. That's 206 times the asking price. Every single parcel offered was claimed.

Demand got so intense that Washington doubled the auction schedule, from every two years to every year, because it can't sell the land fast enough.

Why are sophisticated energy companies fighting over empty desert?

Because of what's under it: an energy source the IEA measured at 140 times global electricity demand, unlocked last year when a drilling crew hit the government's 2035 targets twelve years early. Google has signed a 15-year contract for it. Bill Gates put in $100 million. Washington preserved its tax credits through 2033 while terminating everyone else's.

Now circle October 20th. That's when the government auctions its next batch: 84 parcels of prime Nevada geothermal country, more than a quarter-million acres in one sale. The whole industry will be watching the price.

One company, with sixty years of infrastructure, sits at the center of all of it.

See what they're really bidding on »

"The Buck Stops Here,"

Kelly Maguire
Behind the Markets

Saturday, September 5, 2026

Every advanced reactor contract traces back to Piketon, Ohio.

There is a building in Piketon, Ohio, with sixteen centrifuges inside. It produces about 900 kilograms of fuel per year. It is the only plant in the United States making HALEU.

HALEU is High-Assay Low-Enriched Uranium. Enriched to between 5% and 20%, it is stronger than standard reactor fuel but below weapons-grade. Every advanced reactor design in the US pipeline needs it. Small modular reactors need it. High-temperature gas reactors need it. Molten salt reactors need it. All of them.

There is no commercial source of HALEU in this country outside that one facility. Centrus Energy runs it under a Department of Energy contract. The company finished all production under that demo contract in June, with about 1,900 kilograms total. And every federal dollar, every signed deal, every data center power agreement in the advanced nuclear pipeline traces back to this single point.

The entire US advanced reactor pipeline is gated by physical production. Congress banned Russian uranium and appropriated $3.4 billion for domestic fuel. Reactor developers signed contracts for deliveries starting in 2029. The fuel does not exist at scale. One cascade makes 900 kilograms a year. Commercial capacity is three years away. Policy and capital have moved. The supply has not.

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For years, the US bought enriched uranium from Russia. Rosatom, Russia's state nuclear company, controls 44% of global enrichment capacity. The US depends on foreign sources for nearly 72% of its low-enriched uranium. HALEU commercial production remains concentrated overwhelmingly in Russia.

In May 2024, President Biden signed the Prohibiting Russian Uranium Imports Act. The ban took effect in August 2024 and runs through 2040. Temporary waivers allowed some imports to continue. Those waivers stop on January 1, 2028.

That date is sixteen months away. The country closed the door it had been walking through. The deadline is hard.

Observation: The Russian import ban takes full effect on January 1, 2028, cutting off the dominant global HALEU supplier.
Interpretation: Domestic production must replace Russian supply on a fixed deadline, against a facility producing 900 kilograms per year.

Congress appropriated $3.4 billion to jump-start domestic nuclear fuel production. In July, Centrus signed a $900 million contract with the DOE to expand enrichment at Piketon. Total value with all options reaches $1.07 billion.

Reactor developers are lining up behind that bet. In June, Oklo signed a letter of intent for Centrus to supply HALEU for up to five reactors at a planned campus in southern Ohio. Oklo's partner for that campus is Meta, which plans to use the power for data centers. Deliveries are targeted for 2029. In August, X-energy signed its own enrichment contract and began making prepayments.

Money is flowing toward a production date that has not arrived. Contracts are priced against future output, not current supply.

Observation: Billions in appropriations and multiple developer contracts are stacked against a 2029 production timeline.
Interpretation: Capital has committed. Fuel has not materialized. The gap between signed paper and physical output is measured in years.

Here is where it gets physical. The current cascade has 16 centrifuges making 900 kilograms a year. The initial build-out target is 12 metric tons per year. That is more than thirteen times current output.

A full HALEU cascade requires 120 centrifuge machines. Those machines do not exist yet. They must be built at Centrus's factory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, the only centrifuge manufacturing site in the country. That factory is being expanded now with a planned investment of more than $560 million and nearly 430 new jobs.

The sequence is fixed. Build the factory in Tennessee. Manufacture the centrifuges. Ship them to Ohio. Assemble the cascades. Begin enrichment. A full cascade takes 42 months from funding to production. The first new centrifuges are expected online in Ohio in 2029.

You cannot write a check to speed up metallurgy.

Observation: The first new commercial centrifuges are expected in 2029. A full cascade requires 42 months from funding to operation.
Interpretation: A factory in Tennessee must produce machines before a plant in Ohio can produce fuel. The physical sequence sets the real timeline. Policy and capital are years ahead of the supply chain.

Three forces are pressing on one point. Policy set a hard deadline in January 2028. Capital stacked billions against a production date in 2029. Physics dictates a fixed sequence from factory to centrifuge to cascade to fuel.

The signal worth watching is not the next contract or the next letter of intent. It is whether the Oak Ridge factory hits its manufacturing targets. Whether new centrifuges arrive in Ohio on schedule. Every advanced reactor timeline, from Oklo to X-energy to TerraPower, traces back to that ramp.

Fifteen companies asked the DOE for HALEU. Five received allocations from existing stock. The rest are waiting for supply that a 16-centrifuge cascade cannot provide. The gap between demand and production is the pressure point for the entire system.

Policy banned Russian HALEU with a hard cutoff in 2028. Capital committed billions. Physical production remains at 900 kilograms per year from one cascade in Ohio, with commercial-scale output still three years away. The system is watching whether metal bends on schedule.

Until next time,
The Navigator