Today I talk about Uranium, whose prices have risen to $ 47 / pound Nuclear energy is experiencing a new spring, especially in Europe where France would like to make it renewable energy or at least low environmental impact, as it does not produce CO2. In recent times there is a lot of talk about Generation IV power plants and Thorium reactors, but we are still in the experimental stages and only China has managed to build a first pilot plant. The real wait is for nuclear fusion power plants, the holy grail of energy, but we are still far from governing and exploiting a small sun on earth. 

![image.png](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/Yellowcake.jpg)


Leaving aside speculations about the near future, renewable energies (understood as photovoltaic, solar thermal and wind) in the short term are not able to guarantee the energy supply, at least not without storage infrastructure that reduces the overall efficiency, hence the solution to strengthen those energy sources that do not produce CO2 as hydroelectric, geothermal and nuclear.

Leaving aside the first two, you will surely have heard, even by accident, of the situation that Kazakhstan is experiencing now due to the spikes in energy prices that has brought down in the streets of the country, a population rather furious, with several protesters often armed with automatic weapons and who have taken a very hard and aggressive stance against the government, which, in obvious difficulty of management, has asked for support to allied countries including Armenia and Russia The situation is not resolved and has shown flaws in the political administration, which will have to take into account possible evolutions of these riots, which are countered not only with tear gas or flashbangs but also with the incursions of soldiers. The fuse that set off the uprisings in Kazakhstan is one of many already active in the world and that absolutely must not follow the same course. 

![image.png](https://images.hive.blog/DQmSbKd8nt936SU1SnM1V9mHdQypHDEPSQC5yhoxdtiHoDA/image.png)

If on the one hand, as we have recently said, we are optimistic about these geopolitical conflicts, convinced that they are unlikely to come to a violent clash, we do not hide the fact that, however, there is the possibility that everything will go in another direction (after all, Ray Dalio has also hypothesized this). It is a difficult year, in a series that will cover at least a decade, and that risks highlighting even more the fragilities in relations between countries. 
Commodity prices would only go up in this case; we have seen how Russia contributed to this rise in gas prices in Europe later in the year, and how uranium prices have risen during this first week of January 2022, thanks to internal conflicts in Kazakhstan.
 
![image.png](https://images.hive.blog/DQmWFqhNyaLedesyeioKp8pDvnGWzsbF4HU5oxB8SbGj9tp/image.png)

Why the uprising is closely watched by investors, relates to the possibility of production stops due to protests in the country, and the fact that Kazakhstan holds 40% of the total Uranium market. However, it must be considered that the yellow-cake production area is located in Turkestan, an area far from where the protests are taking place. In fact, the largest Uranium producer, Kazatomprom, stated yesterday that everything is proceeding normally without impact on production and exports. 

Kazatomprom's attributable production accounted for about 23% of global primary uranium production in 2020, according to the company's website.
The Saudis are taking another step toward "diversification" as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman seeks to make the Saudi economy less dependent on the energy sector. Filled with cash thanks to the continued rise in oil and natural gas prices, Saudi Arabia's massive $500 billion-plus sovereign wealth fund has apparently decided to put it to work by buying about $10 billion worth of publicly traded shares over the next year. This comes along with the uranium investment we wrote about just yesterday.

The decision comes as the Saudi wealth fund has promised to double its assets by 2025. As Bloomberg points out, heavy stock purchases by the kingdom's wealth fund could help bolster global equity valuations at a time when investors fear the Federal Reserve is about to pull the rug out from under U.S. stocks, causing them to fall dramatically after one of the best decades, performance-wise, that anyone can remember.

The Saudi wealth fund has accumulated about $500 billion in assets and received a $40 billion increase in funds from the Kingdom's financial reserves in early 2020. This money is used to buy stocks at record lows starting in March 2020, when the value of stocks was at its lowest. The fund has invested in stocks such as those of Citi, Facebook or the cross-company.

Thank for reading.

## CREDITS
Photo of yellowcake - Uranium | released free to use ([Public Domain](https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=241759)).


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