On December 12, 2015, world leaders came together around an ambitious set of climate goals known as the Paris Agreement. This UN agreement marked an historic moment of international cooperation and acknowledgement of the threat posed by climate change and the global trade in fossil fuels. To reach the Paris climate goals would require more than international cooperation, however, as the underlying economic reality still allowed for the dominance of fossil fuels. Eleven years since the signing of that document, the economic situation has changed drastically, and nuclear energy combines relatively low-carbon emissions with comparatively low operating cost, leading some policymakers and experts to view it as a strong contributor to achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement while supporting long-term energy demand.

For much of the immediate aftermath of WW2, nuclear energy was seen as the technology of the future, promising vast quantities of affordable energy with little pollution. In the wake of the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo, reactors were being commissioned at an unprecedented pace. In France, somewhere between 70-80% of the nation’s electricity would come to be generated by nuclear, while the United States proposed to build 200 reactors across the nation. Then, on April 26th, 1986, reactor 4 of the Chernobyl power plant exploded, and 2011 saw the Fukushima disaster, both events which soured public sentiment toward nuclear energy for a generation, and the consequences extended beyond public perception. Increased regulatory uncertainty, higher financing costs, and declining political support transformed nuclear from a strategic investment into a financial risk for utilities and governments. Germany had dozens of nuclear plants that were decommissioned as a result of the political consequences of these events, a wave of decommissioning that is now viewed by many as a mistake. In the wake of these events, plans were simply abandoned, reactors were dismantled, and the promised future never materialized.

Now, though, the electrical grid is experiencing new and unforeseen stresses. The modern electrical grid balances itself around a single principle, that at every instant electricity generation must be equal to demand. This balancing principle allowed the grid to evolve around daily and seasonal demand cycles. Residential, commercial, and many industrial customers would naturally create periods of rising and falling energy consumption in the process of their daily operations. Hyperscaler AI data centers place a very different demand on the grid, consuming enormous amounts of electricity with little variation in their daily or seasonal needs.

These large new energy demands are coinciding with a moment of restriction in the supply of traditional fossil fuels. The war in Ukraine has cut off energy flows from Russia to the West, while tensions with Iran have nearly completely choked off fuel imports through the Strait of Hormuz. The constrained supply alone has caused energy prices to nearly double in some locations and, more importantly, has damaged industry faith in the reliability of the previously existing global supply chain.

Nuclear energy is well-suited to meet this unique combination of demand and supply stress. Nuclear energy projects come with a very high upfront capital cost, but have a low operating cost and the prospect of near-continuous operation without requiring continuous fuel deliveries through global commodity markets. The World Nuclear Agency itself said, “A single uranium fuel pellet (about the size of a fingertip) produces as much energy as approximately one metric ton of coal, 149 gallons of oil, or 17,000 cubic feet of natural gas. This extraordinary energy density means nuclear plants require very little fuel, resulting in low and predictable fuel costs once operational.” That energy density allows for stable costs, consistent supply, and is extremely enticing for any corporation looking to bring energy onto the grid and support the build-out of always-on data centers or any government viewing energy as a national security issue in light of recent supply chain disruptions. While it is not completely immune to deficiencies under extreme conditions, nuclear is the only widely deployable, low-carbon technology capable of providing continuous, utility-scale electricity without reliance on local weather conditions. Wind and solar rely on the weather for uptime, hydro and geothermal can be limited by geography; it is only nuclear that can reliably produce low-cost energy anywhere in the world.

This alignment with global energy needs is being actively encouraged by corporations and governments alike. While a lot of enthusiasm is being generated around new compact reactors designed for greater flexibility, such as the Small Modular Reactor (SMR) designs and the new fuel types like TRISO that power them, those are far from the only developments. New versions of established designs, such as an update to the AP1000 class of grid-scale reactor, still form the backbone of industrial-scale projects, while the SMRs create entirely new classes of demand from commercial customers such as mines, tech companies, and hospitals. In 2024, Microsoft signed a 20-year Power Purchase Agreement with Constellation Energy to support the restart of Unit 1 of Three Mile Island. Polish mining company KGHM has agreed to deploy NuScale Small Modular Reactors in support of its copper mining operations. UK policymakers have developed the Regulated Asset Base model, which enables developers of nuclear power plants to recover some of their costs during construction, rather than waiting until operations have begun. The ADVANCE Act in the United States has taken steps to clarify the regulatory roadmap and incentivize investment.

A thriving startup ecosystem has enabled innovation. This corporate financing and streamlined regulatory landscape is enabling ingenious design and invention, such as the aforementioned Small Modular Reactors being produced by companies like NuScale and Radiant, new fuel types such as TRISO and HALE-U, and new supporting software, materials, and equipment such as those being developed by Atomic Canyon and Aule Materials. The nuclear industry spent much of the last four decades answering whether nuclear energy was safe, economical, or necessary. That debate is increasingly being replaced by a more urgent question: whether the world can build enough nuclear capacity quickly enough to meet rising electricity demand. The transition envisioned at Paris was never simply a technological challenge. It was an industrial challenge requiring the construction of new supply chains, new manufacturing capacity, new engineering tools, and a new generation of expertise. The next century of energy will not be defined only by the sources of electricity we choose, but by our ability to build the infrastructure required to power a more electrified world. Nuclear energy is positioned to be the center of that new world.