From Meltdown to Slowdown: how global policy has defined our current nuclear energy landscape

At COP28 in Dubai, 25 countries signed a ‘Declaration to Triple Nuclear Energy’ by the year 2050, with a further 6 singing at COP29 late last year. This promise is the next step in our efforts to keep global heating below the 1.5 degree target outlined in the 2016 Paris Agreement, and has been incentivised by the recent re-categorisation of nuclear as a low carbon, ‘green’ energy source. However, despite being a high output, reliable, and now ‘green’ alternative to fossil fuels, nuclear energy makes up just 9% of our global electricity production (compared to the 61% collective share of coal, oil, and gas), as shown by Figure 2. This was not the initial plan.

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In 1974 the International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA)predicted that by the year 2000 the ‘most likely’ net installed capacity of nuclear reactors globally would be 3600 GWe, but when the new millennium came, this figure was sitting at just 350 GWe (Figure 3). By comparing this power out put to actual nuclear energy use (2500 TWh from Figure 4), it suggests an average operational capacity of 80%. From this, it is relatively simple to calculate that if these projected reactors had been built, they would be providing 85% of our current global energy demand. This would have eliminated the need for fossil fuels long ago, with renewables easily making up the difference and providing an energy surplus. So why didn’t this happen, and what does this mean for the future of global energy?

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Between the 1950s and 80s, the postwar economic boom, rise in energy demand, and air of competition during the Cold War led to a period of rapid development for the nuclear industry. Following decades of secrecy and an exclusive focus on atomic weapons, the new aim of leading governments was to develop fission technology for energy production. Just 30 years after the first nuclear fission reactors became operational in the late 50s (USA, Soviet Union,UK, France), there were over 400 reactors operational globally, whose construction was spurred on by several energy crisis in the 70s. This exponential growth is clear in Figure 3, which displays the number of operational reactors by year, and makes those mid-70s IAEA predictions seem quite sensible.

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Amid this period of growth, two nuclear disasters at ThreeMile Island in 1979 and Chernobyl in 1986 shook the world and transformed public approval of nuclear energy into widespread fear and distrust. Never had a man-made creation possessed the capacity to go wrong so drastically and spectacularly. Government policies soon shifted to reflect this viewpoint, imposing stringent regulations that would create lengthy and expensive construction timelines for all future power plants, effectively ending the rapid deployment of the technology. Most operational reactors today were built before this policy shift in the 1990s, as the most economically viable way of running nuclear energy now is simply to extend the lifetime of existing plants (often far beyond what was initially intended). The reason for this can be displayed by the following realities of the industry:

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• Constructing a modern nuclear reactor requires large scale and long-term investment. When factoring in loan repayment, the time to make a return on initial investment (ROI) is far longer than that of equivalent gas or renewable power sources.
• Following denuclearisation, the supply chain and workforce for plant construction has dispersed, meaning that vast budget overruns and unforeseen delays are common, compounding the prior issue.
• Whilst a fission plant is reliable, it is not dispatchable, meaning it cannot be quickly turned on and off to optimise its fuel use or increase its output on demand.
• Finally, and most importantly, nuclear reactors produce radioactive waste and can cause catastrophic environmental damage under meltdown scenarios. As the main driver for concern, this issue has been important in causing the above effects and has only worsened following theFukushima incidents in 2011.  

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Whilst the purpose of this article is not to debate how appropriate current nuclear regulations are, it is worth highlighting that despite Fukushima Daiichi being the worst nuclear disaster in the last 40 years, no one died, and the radiation contamination of the surrounding area is now negligible. In the light of this event, Germany decided to close its entire nuclear fleet (which it achieved in 2023), and thus increased its imports of Russian gas whilst building up its renewables network. As a result, in comparison to France, who sources 65% of electricity from nuclear, Germany now has 12 times the carbon intensity (grams of CO2 eq. per kWh) and double the annual CO2 emissions. The pertinent issue here is that whilst nuclear reactors come with a very serious but low probability risk, the effects of unmitigated climate change are a certainty. This is why nuclear is now being realised as a transitional energy source, as a 100% renewable network would be costlier and less reliable than retaining a nuclear base load.

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So, what needs to change? Reactor construction must become cheaper, quicker, and more efficient, whilst maintaining high standards of safety and quality. This is not just to make nuclear a more attractive investment but is crucial to ensure nuclear projects survive the radical changes in political landscape that are becoming increasingly more common. Sustained political willpower (and policies) are hard to achieve, with nuclear currently flipping between a ‘green’ branding alongside renewables, and a ‘firm’ branding alongside fossil fuels, just to keep support. To achieve this fast and economical deployment, it is hoped that scaled down versions of typical or novel reactor concepts, called Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), may provide the answer. These reactors have a lower power output but boast smaller footprints and a greater level of safety than their larger counterparts. Many private companies are developing this technology with the aim of creating a standardised construction process (like that of planes), that will seek to avoid many of the problems plaguing the current industry. However, these companies still need large government investment if they are to produce demonstration reactors, before becoming economically independent. Therefore, the policy shift we need to see now is a focus on supporting these public and private programmes to the deployment stage, helping us reach this ‘triple nuclear’ goal and moving one step closer to our net-zero targets. Countries like China and Russia have already been investing heavily into this with massive state-run projects, and so it is now up to the rest of those 31 signatory countries to step up and invest in their own programmes to quickly and safely realise the initial promise of global clean energy from nuclear, and to mitigate the effects of climate change.

I would like to thank Jack Moore from the Clean Air Task Force (CATF) for his insights surrounding nuclear energy policies, which will doubtless be of further use in next months article discussing fusion energy.

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