Uranium is the fuel for nuclear-fission power plants, and demand has climbed sharply as countries restart shuttered reactors, commission new small modular reactors (SMRs), and earmark zero-carbon nuclear power for AI data-center electricity load. Unlike gold or copper, uranium doesn't trade on a continuous public spot exchange — most volume settles via long-term contracts between miners and utilities priced off the UxC weekly spot index. Quoted "uranium prices" therefore refer to U₃O₈ (yellowcake) per pound rather than a real-time tick, and the closest publicly-traded spot proxy is the Sprott Physical Uranium Trust (SPUT, TSX).
Supply is heavily concentrated in Kazakhstan (~40% of global production), Canada, and Australia, with Cameco (CCJ) the largest Western producer. The most liquid US-listed pure-uranium ETF is URA (Global X), which blends physical-uranium exposure with mining equities; URNM (Sprott Uranium Miners) and URNJ (Sprott Junior Uranium Miners) are pure mining-equity baskets, and NLR (VanEck Uranium + Nuclear) broadens the basket to include nuclear utilities. Other mining names to watch include Denison Mines (DNN), Uranium Energy Corp (UEC), NexGen Energy (NXE), and Ur-Energy (URG).