The World is Switching to Nuclear Energy

Nuclear energy is staging a dramatic global comeback as energy security fears, fossil fuel volatility, and the limits of renewables force governments to reconsider their long-held opposition.

Despite decades of relentless anti-nuclear propaganda which paralysed the use of nuclear energy and stifled its expansion, harsh realities arising from the wars in Ukraine and Iran, as well as the inherent limitations of wind and solar energy, particularly their inability to provide reliable baseload power, have accelerated the expansion of nuclear power around the world.

In a sense, nuclear energy has been a victim of its original use to end World War II in the Pacific, with the bombing of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki bringing about the Japanese surrender in August 1945.

In the minds of many, nuclear energy is inextricably linked with the military applications of nuclear fuel, which does not apply to other energy sources such as coal, petroleum and renewables.

However, from the 1940s onwards, nuclear scientists and engineers believed that nuclear energy had the potential to deliver almost unlimited quantities of affordable, reliable electricity. Many developed countries, including the United States, UK, France, Russia, Japan and China, have long developed nuclear power stations that have comprised a significant share of these countries’ energy mix.

In France, for example, nuclear energy provides about two-thirds of the country’s electricity. Other European countries with high nuclear electricity production share include Slovakia, with 60 per cent of its electricity from nuclear, Hungary, with 47 per cent, and Finland, at over 39 per cent.

The world’s largest user of nuclear power is the United States, which had 94 reactors in operation in 2024, followed by China with 57.

Role of Coal

According to the Our World in Data website, coal remains the world’s largest single source of electrical power, generating about 34 per cent, followed by natural gas (22 per cent), hydroelectricity (14 per cent), and nuclear (9 per cent), followed by wind power (8 per cent) and solar (7 per cent).

However, recent events in the Middle East have reinforced the need to shift to nuclear power.

Separately, the Trump Administration has accelerated the expansion of nuclear power in the United States, as part of President Donald Trump’s plan to reindustrialise the nation and end the United States’ dependence on imported energy.

The US Government has committed several billion dollars to breathe new life into the American nuclear sector through eight Presidential Executive Orders, putting the nation on the path to a nuclear energy renaissance.

These involve large-scale investment in advanced reactor development, bold efforts to remove regulatory barriers to new power stations, deployment of next-generation small modular nuclear reactors, new life for retired nuclear plants, including the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania and the Palisades plant in Michigan, and major strides in securing America’s nuclear fuel supply chain.

In Japan, which closed all its nuclear reactors after the Fukushima nuclear power station was seriously damaged by an earthquake and subsequent tsunami in 2011, the country is now poised to bring all reactors back online and rapidly expand its nuclear power industry.

Japan’s critical dependence on imported sources of energy – natural gas from Russia, and oil and gas from the Middle East – have decisively focused public opinion on the need for energy independence.

Crucially, the Japanese Government has learned the lessons of Fukushima and has established a nuclear regulatory authority which is independent of both the nuclear power industry and the government.

Japan’s first female Prime Minister, Sanae Takaichi, has set a goal to double Japan’s nuclear power production by 2040.

Strategic Mistake

Europe is moving in the same direction. At the recent European Nuclear Energy Summit in Paris, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen described Europe’s 2011 decision to abandon nuclear energy as a “strategic mistake”.

She said that, in 1990, Europe produced a third of its electricity from nuclear power. That has now fallen to an average of 15 per cent, leaving the continent “completely dependent on expensive and volatile imports” of fossil fuels, much of which came from Russia and the Middle East.

Europe is therefore facing soaring energy prices and reduced supply. To meet the challenge, the European Commission has committed €330 million ($A538 million) to expand nuclear energy production across Europe.

The British Labour Government, long a supporter of alternatives to oil and gas, has also confirmed its strong support for the expansion of the nuclear power industry.

Rolls-Royce, a leading British manufacturer of luxury cars and jet engines, is also the manufacturer of nuclear power plants to all British nuclear submarines. It has been working for years on small modular reactors (SMRs) for civilian use and is about to commission its first SMR.

Faced with the soaring cost of fossil fuels, there has been a complete switch in sentiment by both governments and people in favour of nuclear energy for electricity generation.

Republished with thanks to News Weekly. Image courtesy of Adobe.

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ODM Daily Commentary

Let’s call this what it is: the great nuclear comeback. And not a moment too soon.

For decades, the environmental movement sold the world a bill of goods. Wind. Solar. Rainbows and unicorns. They told us we could power industrial civilisation with breezes and sunshine, and anyone who questioned the math was a fossil fuel shill or a climate denier.

Then Germany happened. Then California happened. Then the lights started flickering from London to Sydney.

And now, even Ursula von der Leyen — the face of the European green establishment — has admitted the obvious: abandoning nuclear was a “strategic mistake.” That’s Brussels-speak for “we messed up, and now we’re freezing.”

Let’s be crystal clear about what the article lays out:

Coal still rules. Thirty-four per cent of the world’s electricity comes from burning black rock. That’s not a green revolution. That’s a confession that renewables can’t carry the load.

America is all in. The Trump Administration didn’t just tinker around the edges. Eight executive orders. Billions committed. Three Mile Island — yes, that Three Mile Island — is coming back online. If that doesn’t signal a shift, nothing does.

Japan learned its lesson. Fukushima was a disaster. But Japan did what mature nations do: they investigated, regulated, and restarted. Now they’re doubling down. Their first female Prime Minister wants to double nuclear output by 2040. That’s leadership.

Europe is eating crow. Von der Leyen admitted Europe went from 33 per cent nuclear to 15 per cent — and filled the gap with Russian gas. How did that work out? Soaring prices, supply cuts, and a continent held hostage by a dictator.

And what about Australia? The country with the world’s largest uranium deposits. A stable geology. A skilled workforce. And a political class so terrified of the word “nuclear” that they’d rather burn coal until the end of time than have an adult conversation about splitting the atom.

The irony is staggering. We mine the fuel. We just refuse to use it.

Meanwhile, Rolls-Royce — a car company — is building small modular reactors. The Brits get it. The French never lost it. The Chinese are racing ahead. Even the Japanese — who lived through the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl — have seen the light.

Australia sits on the sidelines, wedded to a renewable fantasy that collapses the moment the sun sets and the wind drops.

Here’s the hard truth: you cannot run a modern economy on weather-dependent power. Not without blackouts. Not without batteries that don’t exist yet. Not without paying through the nose for gas from hostile nations.

Nuclear is safe. It’s reliable. It’s carbon-free. And after seventy years of fear-mongering, the world is finally admitting what scientists have known all along.

The question isn’t whether Australia will join the nuclear renaissance. The question is how far behind we’ll be when we finally do.

Strategic mistake? Europe made one. Don’t let Australia make the same.

— ODM Daily