Constellation: A Nuclear Bet Worth Ten Years

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Now, I’ve seen a good many booms and busts in my time—railroads, telegraphs, even those infernal penny stocks—and I reckon this here energy business is shaping up to be another one. But unlike most fancies, this nuclear notion seems to have a bit of staying power. In ’25, those nuclear energy stocks, why, they were outshining just about everything else.

Young Oklo, a sprightly upstart, tripled its worth, while Centrus Energy and Cameco, solid names, both had a right fine year. Even that VanEck Uranium and Nuclear ETF (NLR +2.86%), a bundle of shares if ever there was one, gained over 50% in twelve months. A heap of excitement, to be sure.

But if you asked me to put my money on one for the long haul—ten years, mind you—I’d lay it down on Constellation Energy (CEG 0.35%). Not because it’s the flashiest, or the most promising in a whirlwind fashion, but because it’s… sensible. A rare quality these days, I assure you.

A Steady Hand in a World of Gadgets

Constellation ain’t got the giddy appeal of a young whippersnapper like Oklo. They don’t promise you the moon in a fortnight. But Oklo, for all its ambition, doesn’t have what Constellation does: operating nuclear power plants. Actual, working, electricity-generating plants. That’s a considerable advantage, wouldn’t you say?

They operate the biggest fleet of nuclear plants in the U.S., and they’ve signed contracts that’ll keep ’em busy for a decade or more. That’s not speculation, that’s a foundation. A solid piece of ground to build on, unlike some of these airy castles folks are trying to sell you.

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Just this June, they struck a twenty-year deal with Meta Platforms, promising ’em the full output of their Clinton Clean Energy Center starting in ’27. And they’re even trying to breathe life back into the old Three Mile Island site—now called Crane Clean Energy Center—with a bit of help from Microsoft. A right ambitious undertaking, that.

They’ve also swallowed up Calpine, making ’em the biggest electricity producer in the country. That’s a considerable reach, I reckon. A good deal of power concentrated in one hand, which, as any student of history knows, can be a blessing or a curse.

Now, I wouldn’t rule out Constellation dabbling in these newfangled next-generation reactors. Like Oklo and NuScale, they’re designing smaller ones, and Constellation might well follow suit. Their CEO, Joe Dominguez, has hinted at it, and with all this demand from those artificial intelligence data centers, it’s a sensible move. But they’re not betting the farm on it, and that’s a smart thing.

Constellation won’t deliver you overnight riches, no sir. But with operating assets and long-term contracts, they look well-positioned to grow over the next decade. It’s not a gamble, it’s an investment. And in my experience, those are the ones that pay off in the long run. It’s a sturdy ship in a sea of speculation, and that, my friends, is worth something.

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2026-01-22 05:13