Since 2018, uranium has benefited from a gradual improvement in sentiment, and in 2023 it took off, climbing by 80%. So what happened, and what is the outlook now? The main driver of uranium’s value is the nuclear-power industry, which started life in the 1940s. In 1942 the naturalised American physicist Enrico Fermi achieved the first human-created self-sustaining nuclear-chain reaction. The industry then developed on a worldwide basis. Until, that is, something went wrong. In fact, three problems subsequently occurred.
Accidents at the US Three Mile Island plant in 1979 and at Chernobyl in Ukraine in 1986 damaged the industry’s reputation for safety. Confidence was restored by the beginning of the 21st century, but the most significant blow was yet to fall. The 2011 Fukushima plant failure in Japan caused major damage to nuclear power’s reputation.
