In the decade following Fukushima, the conventional wisdom on nuclear power was clear: the technology was dying. Germany accelerated the closure of its nuclear fleet. Japan shut down virtually all of its reactors. Switzerland voted to phase out nuclear by 2034. Across the developed world, nuclear’s share of electricity generation fell steadily. The economics of solar and wind were improving dramatically, and the political mood after a second major nuclear accident in 25 years was deeply hostile.
That consensus is now reversing with surprising speed.
In the United States, the Biden administration passed the first significant pro-nuclear legislation in decades. Microsoft, Google, and Amazon have signed agreements to purchase nuclear power — Amazon funded a 960 MW nuclear development that will power its data centres, while Microsoft signed the first commercial power purchase agreement with Three Mile Island, a plant the company helped restart specifically to meet its energy needs. France, which had been planning to reduce nuclear’s share of electricity from 75% to 50%, reversed course and committed to building 14 new reactors. Japan is restarting plants and extending the operational licenses of existing ones. Poland, which has no nuclear power, broke ground on its first plant. South Korea, which had been planning to phase out nuclear, reversed that policy entirely.
Perhaps most significantly, the International Energy Agency — which had long been conservative about nuclear’s role in decarbonization — stated in its Net Zero Emissions by 2050 roadmap that nuclear capacity needs to roughly double by 2050 to meet climate targets.
Nuclear power is back in serious policy conversation. The question of whether it should be is worth examining honestly.
The Case For
The argument for nuclear power in the context of decarbonization rests on several pillars.
Reliability: Solar generates power when the sun shines; wind generates power when the wind blows. Nuclear generates power continuously, regardless of weather or season. This “baseload” reliability has enormous value in electricity grids that need to match supply to demand at every moment. Storing renewable electricity at grid scale — in batteries, pumped hydro, or other technologies — is possible but expensive. Nuclear provides firm power without storage.
Density: Nuclear is the most energy-dense power source by a very large margin. A single uranium fuel pellet the size of a fingertip contains as much energy as 17,000 cubic feet of natural gas, or 1,780 pounds of coal, or 149 gallons of oil. This density translates into an extraordinarily small land and material footprint: nuclear produces more electricity per square metre of land than any other energy source, including renewables.
Carbon intensity: Lifecycle carbon emissions from nuclear power are comparable to wind power and substantially lower than solar, when manufacturing, installation, and decommissioning are included. Nuclear is among the cleanest energy sources by this measure.
Safety record: Per unit of energy generated, nuclear power has caused fewer deaths than virtually any other energy source — including renewable energy. The death rate from coal air pollution is orders of magnitude higher than from nuclear accidents, even including Chernobyl and Fukushima. Wind turbines kill more people per unit of energy generated than nuclear power does, primarily through installation accidents.
The Case Against
The case for nuclear is real. So are its problems.
Cost: Nuclear plants in the West have become extraordinarily expensive to build. The two Vogtle reactors in Georgia — the first new American nuclear plants in 30 years — came online in 2023 and 2024 at a final cost of approximately $35 billion, more than twice the original estimate. The Hinkley Point C plant currently under construction in the UK has a current cost estimate of £33 billion and counting. Cost overruns of 100-300% are common in Western nuclear construction. Renewable energy, by contrast, has seen consistent price declines over the same period. On pure levelized cost of energy, new nuclear is currently more expensive than new wind and solar in most markets.
Construction time: The Vogtle reactors took 14 years from groundbreaking to first power. Hinkley Point C, approved in 2016, is not expected to produce power until the mid-2030s. In a climate context where every decade matters, a technology that takes 10-15 years to deploy from decision to output is structurally slower than the problem requires.
Waste: No country in the world has a permanently operating geological repository for high-level nuclear waste. Finland is the closest — its Onkalo repository is under construction and represents decades of investment and political effort. The United States has no permanent waste repository; Yucca Mountain, the proposed site, was blocked by political opposition from Nevada and has not been revived. The question of what to do with nuclear waste — which remains dangerously radioactive for thousands of years — is technically solvable but politically intractable.
Proliferation risk: Nuclear technology is dual-use. The enrichment processes and technical knowledge required for civilian power are related to those required for weapons development. The spread of nuclear power infrastructure to new countries increases the risk that some of that infrastructure, knowledge, or material could contribute to weapons programs. The Iranian nuclear program developed under the cover of a civilian energy rationale.
Public trust: Chernobyl (1986) and Fukushima (2011) created public fear of nuclear power that is more durable than the objective risk profile justifies. In democratic societies, this matters. Projects require public acceptance to obtain permits, attract workers, and survive political cycles. Germany’s nuclear exit was driven primarily by public opinion rather than engineering or economics.
The New Generation: SMRs and Advanced Reactors
Much of the current enthusiasm for nuclear is focused not on large conventional reactors — where the cost and construction time problems are most severe — but on Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) and advanced reactor designs that promise to address the technology’s traditional weaknesses.
SMRs are reactor designs with generating capacity typically below 300 MW (compared to 1,000-1,600 MW for large conventional reactors). The smaller scale enables factory manufacturing of modules rather than on-site construction — potentially reducing costs through industrial standardization, as has happened with commercial aircraft and automobiles. The modular design allows capacity to be added incrementally as demand grows.
Companies including NuScale, TerraPower (backed by Bill Gates), Rolls-Royce, and many others are developing SMR designs. Governments have poured research funding into the space. The first NuScale SMR was expected to begin construction in Idaho in the mid-2020s.
The honest assessment is that SMRs remain unproven at commercial scale. NuScale’s first commercial project, in fact, was cancelled in 2023 when electricity prices came in higher than anticipated and the utility consortium backing it withdrew. TerraPower’s Natrium reactor is still in development. The engineering principles are sound; the commercial economics remain to be demonstrated.
The Geopolitics of Nuclear Energy
Nuclear power has geopolitical dimensions that the energy transition debate often underemphasizes.
Russia’s Rosatom is the dominant global player in new nuclear plant construction, with projects underway or contracted in Turkey, Egypt, Bangladesh, Hungary, India, China, Finland, and other countries. In many of these cases, Rosatom provides not only the technology but the financing — a form of energy-sector geopolitical influence that the war in Ukraine has not significantly disrupted, because most of these countries have declined to sanction Russian civil nuclear technology.
China’s state nuclear companies are similarly expanding internationally, building and financing plants across Asia and Africa. The spread of Chinese and Russian nuclear technology creates long-term dependencies: reactors built with foreign technology require fuel, spare parts, and maintenance expertise from the supplier country for their operational lifetimes of 40-60 years.
The United States and its allies have recognized this as a strategic vulnerability and are attempting to develop competitive offerings — through the US Export-Import Bank, through the Foundational Infrastructure for the Responsible Use of Small Modular Reactor Technology (FIRST) program, and through bilateral agreements with partner countries. Whether Western nuclear industries can compete, given their cost disadvantage, is an open question.
Where This Leaves the Debate
The honest verdict on nuclear’s comeback is: probably warranted, but with significant caveats.
Nuclear belongs in the decarbonization toolkit. Its reliability and land efficiency address real weaknesses of renewable-only grids. Its safety record is better than public perception reflects. Extending the operational life of existing nuclear plants — at relatively low cost — is almost certainly the right choice for countries that have them.
New large-scale nuclear construction in the West, at current cost trajectories, is harder to justify economically compared to alternatives unless policy mechanisms — carbon pricing, capacity markets, direct subsidies — close the gap.
SMRs represent genuine promise, but promise that still needs to be converted into demonstrated commercial reality. The next five years of SMR development will be a critical test.
And the waste problem remains what it has always been: technically manageable, politically very difficult, and genuinely urgent. Every year that the current stockpile of high-level waste sits in temporary storage rather than permanent repositories is a year of accumulating risk. No serious energy policy conversation about nuclear’s future can defer this.
Also explore:
Climate Change: Is It Too Late to Stop the Worst?
Water Wars: The Next Resource Conflict Will Be Over Drinking Water (coming August 17)
AI Regulation: Who Controls the Controllers? (published June 23)
The Biggest Global Risks of the Next Decade
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About the Author
António Monteiro
Engineer by profession, geopolitical analyst by conviction. I believe responsibility for the planet's future doesn't belong only to governments and institutions - it belongs to all of us. Knowledge about geopolitics, international conflicts, and the forces shaping the world is the most powerful tool for becoming more conscious, informed citizens. You don't need to be a diplomat to understand what's at stake - you just need to want to go beyond the headlines. At Outside The Case, I analyze conflicts, power dynamics, and global trends with rigor and accessible language, so you can understand what's really happening in the world.
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