The Paladin Energy Ltd (ASX: PDN) share price is in the green today, surging higher from the open on Tuesday.
Shares of the uranium miner currently trade for 81.2 cents each. Earlier today, they hit an intraday high of 85.5 cents apiece, an 11% increase on yesterday's closing price.
Other uranium shares are also making gains today, with Alligator Energy Ltd (ASX: AGE) up almost 16% to 6.6 cents a share and Bannerman Energy Ltd (ASX: BMN) up 20.50% to $2.35 each at the time of writing.
There has been no news from Paladin today yet its shares remain buoyant along with many of its peers in the uranium industry. So what's going on?
Let's recap some of the events over the last week to see if we can make sense of it.
What is going on with the Paladin Energy share price?
There have been positive developments for uranium in the use of nuclear energy over the last few days.
Today, there was the report Australians could see nuclear reactors in their states before the end of the decade, thanks to miniaturised nuclear reactors.
Speaking to The Australian, NuScale technologies said modular reactors could power 700,000 homes in Australia, each contributing around 924 megawatts of electricity. The company made these comments after it received approval to build the first modular reactor for commercial application in the United States.
Although nuclear power is currently banned in Australia, the energy crisis may have revealed the fragility of the system. It remains to be seen whether Australia will follow the US lead in adopting the nuclear option to meet emissions targets.
My Fool colleagues in the US also reported that Japan is restarting some of its nuclear reactors and will build additional nuclear facilities.
Further afield, some European countries, such as France, are looking to do the same as they contend with massive gas shortages due to Russia's initiation of war in Ukraine. As well, India is also joining the nuclear ranks as it seeks cleaner energy sources.
Paladin share price snapshot
The Paladin Energy share price is down 15% year to date although it's around 58% higher in the last 12 months.
By comparison, the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) is around 8% lower in 2022 so far and down 6.7% from this time last year.
Paladin's current market capitalisation is approximately $2.4 billion.
