Nuclear vs Natural Gas: Powering AI Data Centers

The short answer: on the latest figures gas is cheaper and bigger, and nuclear is cleaner and steadier. Gas costs $48 to $109 per MWh against $141 to $220 for nuclear, and supplied 43% of US electricity against 19%. Nuclear runs at a 91% capacity factor and emits about one fortieth of the life-cycle CO2. The IEA expects gas to add about 175 TWh for data centers by 2035, and nuclear about the same.

Educational only, not financial advice. Every figure carries its source, listed at the end. The snapshot table and the chart are refreshed about every six hours. Uranium is shown through the URA ETF, a proxy.

A snapshot, not a live quote: Yahoo Finance daily prices, each asset's latest bar dated (UTC) Natural gas 6 Oct 2026, Uranium (URA ETF) 6 Oct 2026. Refreshed about every six hours and last computed on 6 Oct 2026 at 20:25 UTC. Each price is the latest daily bar and each return runs to it. Price changes only, in US dollars, without dividends or fees. Futures are continuous front-month contracts, so a contract roll can show as a small step. Volatility is the standard deviation of daily moves over the past year, annualized. The highest close is from monthly history, not the intraday record. Uranium (URA ETF): Global X Uranium ETF, a proxy: there is no uranium spot feed. Not financial advice.

Natural gas is the Henry Hub futures price. Uranium is the URA ETF, which holds uranium miners and nuclear-related companies, so it is not the uranium price and not a like-for-like comparison.

Sources and years are listed at the end. The capacity factors are for different years and plant types: nuclear plants run flat out, while gas plants often follow demand, so a gas plant dedicated to a flat data center load could run more than the 2019 fleet figure. The deals and the turbine backlog are different measures, announcements versus equipment orders.

• Natural gas combined cycle $48 to $109
• Nuclear $141 to $220

Lazard Levelized Cost of Energy+, June 2025, unsubsidized. Bars show the top of each range. Gas costs depend heavily on the gas price.

• Natural gas combined cycle 490 g
• Nuclear 12 g

IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (2014), life-cycle medians for electricity generation technologies.

Selected from a tracker of 13 agreements (9.8 GW) updated 6 July 2026. Several other agreements, including some with existing plants, have no published size yet.

• Gas is bottlenecked by equipment. GE Vernova ended the second quarter of 2026 with 116 GW of gas equipment backlog and slot reservations, up from 100 GW a quarter earlier. In April it put lead times on new heavy-duty turbines at about three years, with roughly 10 GW of capacity left across 2029 and 2030 combined.
• Data centers are a minority of that order book, for now. About 20% of GE Vernova's 100 GW under contract in the first quarter related to data center customers, or roughly 20 GW, against 9.8 GW in the announced nuclear deals. The two are different measures, so do not read them as a head-to-head count.
• Nuclear is bottlenecked by time. The quick route is restarting an idled reactor, expected in 2027 at Three Mile Island Unit 1. The IEA expects the first small modular reactors only around 2030.

A line chart of what $10,000 invested five years ago would be worth today. The values are in the table above.

$10,000 invested five years ago would be worth: Natural gas: $5,754; Uranium (URA ETF): $15,562. Price changes only, without dividends or fees.

Prices only, without fees. Natural gas futures swing with weather and storage, and the uranium line is an equity ETF, so the two behave very differently. The chart shows how two assets linked to these stories traded, not which power source is better.

• Gas is the incumbent. 43.1% of US electricity against 18.6% for nuclear in 2023, so gas is the default option for fast data center power.
• The price gap is real. Nuclear's range ($141 to $220) sits above the top of gas's ($48 to $109). Tech companies pay for nuclear partly for firm, low-carbon supply, not for the lowest price.
• The emissions gap is larger than the cost gap. Gas is about 40 times nuclear in life-cycle CO2 (490 against 12 grams per kWh), before counting methane leaks.
• Neither can arrive quickly at scale. Turbines have about three years of lead time and new reactors around 2030, which is why restarts and existing plants come first.
• The IEA expects both. About 175 TWh from gas and about the same from nuclear by 2035, so this is a "both" story for the decade rather than a contest with one winner.

For AI data centers, natural gas wins on cost and availability on the latest figures, and nuclear wins on emissions and steady output. Gas is cheaper per megawatt-hour and already supplies the largest share of US power, but its new turbines are booked years ahead. Nuclear costs two to three times as much and mostly arrives after 2030, apart from the reactor restarts, but runs at about 91% and emits a fraction of the carbon. The IEA expects gas to add about 175 TWh for data centers by 2035, and nuclear about the same, which is why the tech companies are signing both. The snapshot table shows how the markets have priced natural gas and the uranium proxy, which is history, not a forecast.

For the fuel side, see Copper vs Uranium, and for the demand side, AI vs Bitcoin Electricity.

Is nuclear or natural gas better for AI data centers?

They solve different problems, so neither is better on every measure. Natural gas is cheaper per megawatt-hour (Lazard's 2025 range is $48 to $109, against $141 to $220 for nuclear) and is the largest source of US electricity at 43% in 2023. Nuclear runs at a capacity factor of about 91% and has far lower life-cycle emissions (12 against 490 grams of CO2 equivalent per kilowatt-hour). The IEA expects both to add about the same amount of generation for data centers by 2035, around 175 terawatt-hours each.

How many nuclear deals have tech companies signed?

One tracker counted 13 hyperscaler and data center nuclear agreements totaling 9.8 gigawatts as of 6 July 2026. Examples include Microsoft's 835-megawatt restart of Three Mile Island Unit 1 with Constellation, expected in 2027, Google's 500 megawatts of Kairos Power small modular reactors around 2030, and Meta's agreements with TerraPower (4.0 gigawatts) and Oklo (1.2 gigawatts). Most of the new-build capacity is not expected before 2030.

How fast can nuclear and gas power be built?

Gas is limited by equipment. GE Vernova said in April 2026 that lead times on new heavy-duty gas turbines are about three years, and by the end of the second quarter its backlog and slot reservations had reached 116 gigawatts. Nuclear is limited by construction time. Restarting an idled reactor is the quick route, with Three Mile Island Unit 1 expected in 2027, while new small modular reactors are expected around 2030 or later.

How much cheaper is natural gas than nuclear?

Lazard's June 2025 unsubsidized levelized cost of energy was $48 to $109 per megawatt-hour for gas combined cycle and $141 to $220 for nuclear, so nuclear cost roughly two to three times as much per unit of electricity. Gas costs depend on the gas price, and nuclear costs depend on construction cost and financing, so both ranges are wide.

How much of US electricity comes from natural gas and nuclear?

In 2023 natural gas supplied 43.1% of US electricity generation and nuclear 18.6%, according to the US Energy Information Administration. The US nuclear fleet ran at a capacity factor of 91.0% in 2025, meaning it produced 91% of what its capacity could in theory deliver all year.

How do the emissions of nuclear and natural gas compare?

Over their full life cycle, the IPCC's median figures are about 490 grams of CO2 equivalent per kilowatt-hour for natural gas combined cycle and 12 grams for nuclear, so gas is roughly 40 times higher. Methane leakage from gas supply chains can add to the gas figure.

Structural figures last checked on 5 October 2026.

• US generation shares (natural gas 43.1%, nuclear 18.6%, 2023): U.S. Energy Information Administration, electricity generation by source.
• Nuclear capacity factor (91.0% in 2025): EIA, Electric Power Monthly, Table 6.7.B (data released 24 September 2026). Combined-cycle capacity factor (57.4%, 2019): EIA, Monthly Energy Review, Table 7.5a.
• Levelized cost ($48 to $109 gas combined cycle, $141 to $220 nuclear, unsubsidized): Lazard Levelized Cost of Energy+, June 2025, as reported by pv magazine USA.
• Life-cycle emissions (490 and 12 g CO2e per kWh, medians): IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, Working Group III (2014), Annex III.
• About 175 TWh from gas and about the same from nuclear for data centers by 2035; first small modular reactors around 2030: IEA, Energy and AI.
• Hyperscaler nuclear deals (13 agreements, 9.8 GW): SMR Intelligence nuclear data center deals tracker (updated 6 July 2026).
• Gas turbine lead times, slots and data center share: POWER Engineering, 23 April 2026. Backlog of 116 GW: Turbomachinery Magazine, 23 July 2026.
• Prices, returns, volatility and the chart: computed from Yahoo Finance daily prices (a snapshot refreshed about every six hours), as noted under the snapshot table. Uranium is the Global X Uranium ETF (URA), a proxy.

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