In southern Texas, the return of uranium mining is bringing an old industry back to life. Jesus “Jesse” Garza Jr. is preparing for another shift at the Alta Mesa Uranium Project, a site that has become part of a wider American effort to rebuild domestic nuclear fuel supplies. For Garza, the work is also deeply personal. His grandmother, Mary Lou Rodriguez, once worked at the same mining site, and his family grew up surrounded by the sounds of heavy machinery operating in the uranium mines around their town.
Generations later, the uranium industry is again offering a future to communities that once depended on it.
Garza joined Alta Mesa as a foreman in 2024 after his grandmother told him that production was restarting. The mine’s revival coincided with a dramatic change in the global outlook for nuclear power.
“I want to continue the family legacy and leave my mark,” Garza said. “Nuclear power is clean power. It’s the future, and I want to be part of it.”
His story reflects a much larger transformation. After decades in which nuclear power struggled with high costs, public concerns over safety and competition from fossil fuels and renewable energy, governments around the world are now reconsidering atomic energy.
The revival is being driven by several forces at once: the need for reliable low-carbon electricity, growing concerns about energy security, the geopolitical disruption caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the enormous power requirements of industries such as artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency mining.
At the center of this revival is a deceptively simple question: Where will the uranium come from?
Texas was once a major contributor to America’s nuclear ambitions.
During the Cold War, uranium mined in the state helped supply both the United States’ nuclear weapons program and its growing civilian nuclear power sector. At its peak, Texas produced enough uranium to provide the equivalent of electricity consumed by roughly eight million homes each year.
But the industry eventually collapsed.
Falling nuclear demand, cheaper imported uranium and declining economic viability forced mines across the United States to close or reduce operations. By the late 1990s, many uranium communities had been left with little of the industrial activity that had sustained them.
The 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan created another shock. The accident revived fears about nuclear safety and prompted several countries to reconsider their nuclear programs. Uranium demand weakened further.
Today, the direction is changing.
The United States is attempting to rebuild domestic uranium production as part of a broader effort to reduce dependence on foreign nuclear fuel. Alta Mesa’s resurgence illustrates how communities that once regarded uranium mining as an industry of the past are now seeing it as part of America’s energy future.
Last year, Alta Mesa became the second-largest uranium producer in the United States.
The transformation in Texas is being mirrored across the world.
More than 40 countries are planning new nuclear reactors or considering expanding their nuclear capacity. Governments are seeking dependable sources of electricity that produce little direct carbon emissions, while rapidly growing technologies are pushing electricity demand higher.
Artificial intelligence data centers, cloud computing infrastructure, electric transportation, industrial electrification and cryptocurrency mining are all intensifying the competition for reliable power.
Nuclear energy has one enormous advantage: energy density.
A uranium fuel pellet about the size of a fingertip can produce roughly as much energy as a tonne of coal or about 17,000 cubic feet of natural gas.
That concentration of energy makes uranium exceptionally valuable for a world seeking large quantities of electricity without continuously burning fossil fuels.
But the nuclear revival has exposed a weakness that had received comparatively little attention during years of subdued demand: the vulnerability of the global uranium supply chain.
Global uranium demand is expected to rise sharply, potentially doubling by 2040.
At the same time, new production projects take years to develop. Mining companies must identify deposits, drill and evaluate them, obtain environmental approvals, secure financing, construct facilities and establish transportation and processing networks.
The result is a potential mismatch between rising demand and available supply.
Analysts and industry officials have warned that uranium supplies could begin tightening after 2030, raising the possibility of fuel shortages over the following decades.
The problem is not necessarily that uranium is rare.
Uranium is roughly 500 times more common than gold.
The difficulty is finding deposits that can be economically extracted, obtaining permission to mine them and ensuring that the resulting uranium can move through a politically secure fuel cycle.
The world’s largest uranium producer is Kazakhstan, which accounts for roughly 40 percent of global primary uranium production.
At the Kharasan-2 mine in southern Kazakhstan, operators use a process known as in-situ recovery, or ISR.
Rather than excavating large quantities of rock, wells inject a solution into underground formations. The solution dissolves uranium, which is then pumped back to the surface and processed into yellowcake, a concentrated uranium powder that forms the basis for nuclear fuel.
ISR now accounts for more than half of global uranium production.
But Kazakhstan’s dominance also illustrates the geopolitical complexity of nuclear fuel.
Mining uranium is only the beginning.
Before uranium can become fuel for many nuclear reactors, it must undergo a series of processes including conversion and enrichment.
Kazakhstan has traditionally depended heavily on Russia for enrichment.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 dramatically changed the strategic calculations surrounding the nuclear fuel industry.
The war highlighted how concentrated the global nuclear fuel chain had become. In 2022, the United States purchased 84 percent of the uranium used by its civilian nuclear reactors from just five countries: Canada, Kazakhstan, Russia, Uzbekistan and Australia.
Russia also supplied about 24 percent of the enriched uranium used by American reactors.
That dependence has become increasingly uncomfortable for Washington and other Western governments.
Nuclear fuel is different from many other commodities because the supply chain is technically complex. A country cannot simply begin producing reactor fuel immediately after discovering uranium deposits.
It needs mining, milling, conversion, enrichment and fuel fabrication capabilities.
The disruption caused by the war has therefore encouraged governments to secure supplies from alternative routes and suppliers.
For Kazakhstan, one emerging option is the Middle Corridor, which avoids Russia. Uranium can be transported across the Caspian Sea and then through Azerbaijan and Georgia toward the Black Sea.
Western customers increasingly view alternative routes as a way to reduce exposure to geopolitical disruptions.
The competition is no longer simply about who has uranium underground. It is about who controls the entire nuclear fuel cycle.
Australia is another major player.
The country possesses the world’s largest known uranium resources, estimated at roughly twice those of Kazakhstan.
Yet possessing resources does not automatically translate into production.
Developing a new uranium mine can take close to a decade.
Andrea Marsland-Smith, chief executive of Alligator Energy, which operates the Samphire Uranium Project in South Australia, said companies could spend about five years drilling and evaluating a deposit before spending another five years navigating regulatory and permitting processes.
That long development cycle creates a challenge for governments seeking to rapidly expand nuclear generation.
Australia also faces a difficult political and social debate.
In Western Australia, where no new uranium mining projects have been approved since 2017, some deposits are located on lands of profound cultural significance to Aboriginal communities.
For Indigenous communities, the question is not simply whether mining can create jobs.
It is also about whether industrial activity could damage landscapes connected to ancestry, spirituality and identity.
At Morapoi outback station, Wangkatha elder Gregory Stubbs expressed uncertainty about what uranium development could mean.
“If it’s going to be uranium mining, what will be the effects? Some of us aren’t quite ready,” he said.
At the same time, the economics of uranium are becoming harder for governments to ignore.
Uranium prices have risen from around $40 a pound to roughly $85 over the past decade as expectations of future demand have strengthened.
Glenn Wilson, mayor of the mining city Kalgoorlie-Boulder, said conversations about the importance of uranium mining were changing.
Australia’s energy challenges could accelerate that debate further.
The country has abundant renewable resources, but maintaining reliable electricity while transitioning away from fossil fuels remains a major challenge.
The nuclear debate is therefore increasingly becoming part of Australia’s broader discussion about energy security.
Australia is not alone in reconsidering uranium.
Sweden has some of Europe’s largest uranium resources, with about 27 percent of the continent’s known reserves.
Much of the uranium lies within alum shale.
But mining the material can create environmental risks because disturbing the shale can release heavy metals into groundwater and streams.
Sweden banned uranium mining in 2018.
The country’s energy situation, however, has changed.
As European countries struggle with high electricity costs and seek to reduce dependence on imported energy — particularly Russian supplies — uranium has regained strategic importance.
Sweden lifted its uranium mining ban effective January, while retaining environmental controls.
The decision demonstrates how the energy-security implications of the war in Ukraine have changed political calculations far beyond Eastern Europe.
For governments, energy independence is increasingly being viewed not merely as an economic objective but as a component of national security.
Japan faces a different problem.
The country imports uranium for its nuclear power program and is therefore exploring unconventional ways of securing future fuel supplies.
One possibility is the ocean.
The world’s oceans contain an enormous quantity of uranium — estimated at between 500 and 1,000 times the amount contained in known recoverable land-based reserves.
The theoretical resource is so large that it could potentially supply nuclear power plants worldwide for tens of thousands of years.
But there is a fundamental problem: uranium is extraordinarily diluted in seawater.
Extracting it is expensive.
Japanese researchers have therefore been developing materials capable of capturing uranium compounds from seawater.
Scientists have experimented with braided materials designed to absorb uranium from the ocean and are working to make those materials reusable.
Research has even extended to the famous Kusatsu Onsen hot springs, where scientists are testing materials capable of capturing metals carried to the surface by highly acidic waters.
The objective is to develop materials that can be reused many times, lowering the cost of extraction.
If commercial-scale seawater uranium extraction becomes possible, Japan could gain a completely new source of nuclear fuel and reduce its vulnerability to overseas suppliers.
But that technology remains experimental.
Securing uranium ore is only one part of nuclear energy security.
Countries also need the ability to enrich uranium.
This is becoming particularly important as governments explore small modular reactors, or SMRs.
SMRs are designed to be smaller and potentially faster and cheaper to construct than conventional nuclear power plants. Their modular design could allow operators to add capacity as electricity demand increases.
They could also make nuclear power possible in locations where constructing a huge conventional reactor would be impractical.
However, many advanced reactor designs require high-assay low-enriched uranium, or HALEU.
HALEU contains a higher concentration of fissile uranium than conventional reactor fuel.
According to Dan Wachs, national technical director for the US Department of Energy’s Advanced Fuels Campaign, HALEU fuel assemblies can operate for significantly longer periods between refueling while producing roughly one-quarter the amount of spent fuel associated with standard fuel.
The problem is supply.
Russia and China are currently the only countries able to produce HALEU commercially at scale.
The United States is attempting to change that.
In June last year, Centrus Energy became the first American company to produce and deliver nearly a tonne of HALEU.
The achievement was important but also demonstrated how enormous the challenge remains.
Nuclear engineer Nick Touran said that amount could fuel only one medium-sized reactor.
A significant fleet of advanced reactors would require tens of thousands of kilograms of HALEU each year.
Centrus is one of three US companies supported through a $2.7 billion Department of Energy program designed to expand domestic enrichment capacity.
The goal is not merely to develop a new nuclear industry.
It is to ensure that the United States does not become dependent on another foreign supplier for the fuel required by the next generation of reactors.
The nuclear revival is also driving research into safer fuels.
At Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, scientists are developing tri-structural isotropic, or TRISO, fuel.
A TRISO fuel particle is approximately the size of a poppy seed.
Inside it is a uranium fuel core surrounded by multiple protective layers designed to retain radioactive material.
The particles can withstand temperatures approaching 1,800 degrees Celsius — higher than temperatures expected during many reactor accident scenarios.
TRISO fuel also has heat-transfer characteristics that can allow reactor cores to cool more naturally during overheating.
That could reduce dependence on complex active safety systems.
Such developments matter because nuclear power continues to face a fundamental public-relations problem: fear of accidents.
Charles Oppenheimer, grandson of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the physicist associated with the development of the atomic bomb, argues that the public needs to look beyond historical fears and examine the science, engineering and safety systems that underpin modern nuclear technology.
But nuclear energy also presents a unique geopolitical dilemma.
The same scientific knowledge that enables peaceful nuclear power can potentially contribute to weapons development.
The challenge for governments is therefore to expand nuclear energy while maintaining effective safeguards against proliferation.
The objective, Oppenheimer argues, should be international cooperation that allows humanity to benefit from nuclear science without turning it into a source of greater danger.
Even a successful expansion of uranium mining may not solve the nuclear industry’s long-term resource problem.
At current consumption rates, known land-based uranium resources are estimated to last roughly 120 to 130 years.
But geopolitical disruption could create shortages long before geological depletion becomes a problem.
“Geopolitics could mean that even if uranium is available, you might not be able to buy it,” said Lin Boqiang, dean of Xiamen University’s China Institute for Studies in Energy Policy.
That concern is driving research into alternative nuclear fuels.
China, which imports more than 80 percent of its uranium, is experimenting with thorium.
In the Gobi Desert, Chinese researchers are developing a molten salt reactor fueled by thorium, a naturally occurring radioactive element.
Molten salt reactors operate differently from conventional water-cooled reactors.
Water-cooled reactors must operate under high pressure because water boils at relatively low temperatures. Molten salts can remain liquid at much higher temperatures and lower pressures.
If overheating occurs, the fuel can be drained into a holding tank. If molten salt leaks, it can cool and solidify around radioactive material.
Thorium advocates also argue that the fuel could produce more energy from less material, generate less long-lived waste and create fewer proliferation concerns.
China’s thorium resources could theoretically satisfy energy demand for thousands of years.
But commercial deployment remains far away.
China’s current plans include a 100-megawatt-thermal demonstration reactor by 2035, potentially capable of supplying electricity to tens of thousands of households.
India is pursuing a similar long-term strategy.
India has some of the world’s largest thorium resources, much of it found in coastal mineral sands.
Anil Kakodkar, former chairman of India’s Atomic Energy Commission, has described the country’s thorium resources as a major strategic opportunity.
India currently operates 24 nuclear reactors and has set an ambitious goal of increasing nuclear capacity elevenfold by 2047.
Thorium is central to its long-term nuclear strategy.
But the technology required to use thorium efficiently on a commercial scale is complicated, and development will take time.
For now, India is also pursuing intermediate solutions.
It has entered into an agreement with US-based Clean Core Thorium Energy to deploy a thorium-HALEU fuel blend designed for heavy-water reactors.
The objective is to explore how thorium can complement uranium-based reactor technology rather than waiting for a completely new reactor system.
For India, the motivation is clear: reducing dependence on imported uranium while exploiting a domestic resource that is abundant along its coastline.
Beyond conventional uranium and thorium reactors lies an even more ambitious goal: nuclear fusion.
Fusion is the process that powers the sun.
Instead of splitting heavy atoms, as conventional nuclear fission reactors do, fusion combines lighter atomic nuclei, releasing enormous amounts of energy.
Recreating that process on Earth requires temperatures above 100 million degrees Celsius.
The resulting plasma must be confined using powerful magnetic fields, while the superconducting magnets themselves must be maintained at temperatures approaching absolute zero.
As nuclear engineer Touran puts it, the challenge involves placing the coldest environments humans can create only a few feet from material hotter than the core of the sun.
Researchers must also develop materials capable of surviving intense neutron bombardment.
China has developed radiation-resistant “super steel” as part of its fusion research.
Its Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak facility has sustained plasma at temperatures almost seven times hotter than the sun’s core for more than 17 minutes.
Britain has committed £2.5 billion, or about $3.4 billion, to fusion research and development and is working on steels designed to produce less radioactive waste.
But fusion has its own fuel problem.
Many fusion concepts rely on deuterium and tritium.
Deuterium is relatively abundant in seawater.
Tritium, however, is rare and is typically produced as a byproduct of nuclear processes.
Companies including Britain’s Astral Systems and Japan’s Kyoto Fusioneering are researching ways to increase tritium availability.
Another possibility is helium-3, which could potentially be fused with deuterium while producing fewer neutrons and avoiding some forms of long-lived radioactive waste.
The problem is availability.
Large deposits of helium-3 are believed to exist on the moon.
China’s Chang’e-5 mission returned lunar soil to Earth in 2020, and researchers detected helium-3 in the samples.
US-based Magna Petra is now developing technologies aimed at extracting helium-3 from lunar material.
Its proponents describe helium-3 as a potentially transformative fuel for future fusion energy.
The revival of nuclear power is therefore much more than a story about restarting old uranium mines.
It is becoming a global contest over resources, enrichment technology, reactor designs, advanced fuels and strategic independence.
Texas is reopening mines.
Kazakhstan remains the world’s dominant producer while navigating a complicated relationship with Russia.
Australia is debating whether its enormous uranium reserves should be developed.
Sweden is reconsidering uranium mining after years of prohibition.
Japan is exploring the possibility of extracting uranium from seawater.
The United States is racing to establish domestic HALEU production and develop safer fuels such as TRISO.
China is exploring thorium and molten salt reactors.
India is building a long-term strategy around its own thorium resources.
And researchers across several countries are pursuing fusion, potentially the most ambitious energy technology ever attempted.
The stakes are enormous.
Nuclear power could provide large quantities of dependable, low-carbon electricity at a time when energy demand is rising rapidly. But achieving that future will require much more than building reactors.
It will require mines, enrichment plants, fuel fabrication facilities, transportation corridors, technological breakthroughs, environmental safeguards and public acceptance.
It will also require governments to navigate the geopolitical reality that nuclear fuel is becoming a strategic commodity.
The nuclear revival could therefore reshape global energy markets in much the same way that oil transformed geopolitics during the 20th century.
For communities such as those around Alta Mesa, the change is already tangible.
Garza’s return to the uranium mine is both a personal continuation of his family’s history and a symbol of an industry attempting to reinvent itself.
The heavy machinery that once represented the Cold War nuclear era is running again.
This time, however, the objective is broader.
The world is preparing for a new age of electricity — one in which uranium, thorium, advanced reactor fuels and eventually fusion could determine not only how nations generate power, but also how securely they control the technologies and resources behind it.
The central question is no longer whether nuclear power has a future.
Increasingly, governments are behaving as though it does.
The harder question is whether the world can build the fuel supply chains, technologies and international safeguards needed to sustain that future.
