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Infrastructure Boom: 5 Ways Investors Can Play It

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Infrastructure Boom: 5 Ways Investors Can Play It

Infrastructure Boom: 5 Ways Investors Can Play It

View the high resolution version of today’s graphic by clicking here.

The world needs infrastructure, and the world needs it soon.

It’s not just about replacing aging pieces of infrastructure like bridges and roads – it’s also about developing modern infrastructure that enables new technology, faster communications, and our ability to use, move, and transmit energy from renewables and natural gas.

Today’s infographic comes to us from Miller Howard Investments and it details five specific ways that investors could play the coming infrastructure boom.

Five Ways to Play The Infrastructure Boom

Here are some of the happening areas within infrastructure, and why:

1. Utilities
The utilities sector will by driven by growth in EVs, renewable energy, abundance of U.S. oil and gas, and smart grid technology.

  • If all U.S. vehicles were EVs, it would mean an immediate 25% boost to electricity demand
  • In 2016, more money was invested in solar and wind than all other electricity sources combined

2. Global Communications
Comms will be buoyed by the rapid growth of 5G, as well as the IoT and its impact on ecommerce.

  • Wireless data use: 96 exabytes per month (EB/mo) to 278 EB/mo between 2016 and 2021
  • The U.S. will capture the largest share of the 5G value chain

3. Energy Infrastructure
Aging infrastructure needs to be updated, while more capacity for electric and O&G transmission is needed.

  • Between 2013-2030, it’s estimated $4.64 trillion will need to be invested in U.S. energy infrastructure
  • By 2035, the U.S. will have net exports of 35 billion cubic feet (Bcf) per day of natural gas

4. Transportation and Logistics
More goods need to get to more places. Transportation and logistics will benefit tremendously from the growth of ecommerce, smart warehouses, cloud-based logistics-as-a-service, and delivery innovation.

  • By 2020, global ecommerce sales is expected to eclipse the $4 trillion mark
  • Parcel shipment volume is accelerating to grow at a higher rate each year

5. Enablers
Big data, 5G and IoT, and increased automation are enabling bigger trends, such as EVs and smart homes.

  • By 2040, it’s estimated that 54% of all new car sales will be electric
  • Meanwhile, the internet of things is exploding to 75.4 billion things by 2025
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Energy

How Much Does the U.S. Depend on Russian Uranium?

Currently, Russia is the largest foreign supplier of nuclear power fuel to the U.S.

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Voronoi graphic visualizing U.S. reliance on Russian uranium

How Much Does the U.S. Depend on Russian Uranium?

This was originally posted on Elements. Sign up to the free mailing list to get beautiful visualizations on natural resource megatrends in your email.

The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed a ban on imports of Russian uranium. The bill must pass the Senate before becoming law.

In this graphic, we visualize how much the U.S. relies on Russian uranium, based on data from the United States Energy Information Administration (EIA).

U.S. Suppliers of Enriched Uranium

After Russia invaded Ukraine, the U.S. imposed sanctions on Russian-produced oil and gas—yet Russian-enriched uranium is still being imported.

Currently, Russia is the largest foreign supplier of nuclear power fuel to the United States. In 2022, Russia supplied almost a quarter of the enriched uranium used to fuel America’s fleet of more than 90 commercial reactors.

Country of enrichment serviceSWU%
🇺🇸 United States3,87627.34%
🇷🇺 Russia3,40924.04%
🇩🇪 Germany1,76312.40%
🇬🇧 United Kingdom1,59311.23%
🇳🇱 Netherlands1,3039.20%
Other2,23215.79%
Total14,176100%

SWU stands for “Separative Work Unit” in the uranium industry. It is a measure of the amount of work required to separate isotopes of uranium during the enrichment process. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration

Most of the remaining uranium is imported from European countries, while another portion is produced by a British-Dutch-German consortium operating in the United States called Urenco.

Similarly, nearly a dozen countries around the world depend on Russia for more than half of their enriched uranium—and many of them are NATO-allied members and allies of Ukraine.

In 2023 alone, the U.S. nuclear industry paid over $800 million to Russia’s state-owned nuclear energy corporation, Rosatom, and its fuel subsidiaries.

It is important to note that 19% of electricity in the U.S. is powered by nuclear plants.

The dependency on Russian fuels dates back to the 1990s when the United States turned away from its own enrichment capabilities in favor of using down-blended stocks of Soviet-era weapons-grade uranium.

As part of the new uranium-ban bill, the Biden administration plans to allocate $2.2 billion for the expansion of uranium enrichment facilities in the United States.

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