Nuclear Energy's Surprising Comeback

Why Nuclear Energy is Suddenly Making a Comeback?

Nuclear energy is experiencing a resurgence for several key reasons, driven by a mix of practical needs, technological advancements, and shifting global priorities. Here’s why it’s suddenly back in the spotlight:

First, the world’s hunger for clean energy is insatiable. With climate change bearing down, countries are scrambling to cut carbon emissions. Renewables like wind and solar are great, but they’re weather-dependent and can’t always deliver steady, large-scale power. Nuclear offers a reliable, low-carbon alternative—pumping out massive amounts of electricity without the CO2 baggage of coal or gas. For instance, a single nuclear plant can generate over 1,000 megawatts, enough to power a city, 24/7, rain or shine.

Second, energy security’s become a geopolitical chess game. Look at Europe—Russia’s war in Ukraine and the subsequent gas supply squeeze left nations desperate for alternatives. Nuclear’s domestic production (once you’ve got the uranium or thorium) reduces reliance on volatile fossil fuel imports. France, with its 56 reactors supplying over 70% of its electricity, is a poster child for this stability.
Third, tech’s getting better. New reactor designs, like small modular reactors (SMRs), promise cheaper, safer, and faster-to-build options. Companies like NuScale are pushing SMRs that can fit on a truck bed and be deployed in remote areas or paired with renewables. Meanwhile, innovations in nuclear waste recycling—like what’s being explored in the U.S. and France—tackle the old bogeyman of long-term radioactive storage.

Fourth, public perception’s shifting. Fear from Chernobyl and Fukushima still lingers, but younger generations, hammered by climate anxiety, are warming up to nuclear as a lesser evil. Polls—like one from Pew in 2023—show growing U.S. support, especially as tech giants like Microsoft eye nuclear to power their AI data centers.

Finally, governments are throwing cash at it. The U.S. Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 included tax credits for nuclear, while the EU labeled it a “green” investment in 2023. China’s building reactors like it’s a race—aiming for 150 by 2035. Even Japan, post-Fukushima, is restarting plants.
It’s not all rosy—cost overruns, regulatory hurdles, and waste concerns still loom. But the combo of climate pressure, energy geopolitics, and tech breakthroughs is flipping the script. Nuclear’s no longer the pariah; it’s the prodigal son coming home.

Small modular reactors (SMRs) are a new breed of nuclear power plants designed to be smaller, simpler, and more flexible than the hulking reactors of the past. Here’s the breakdown:

What Are They?

SMRs are nuclear reactors with a power output typically under 300 megawatts—think enough to power a small city or a large industrial site, compared to traditional reactors that often crank out 1,000 megawatts or more. The “modular” part means they’re built in chunks, often in factories, then shipped and assembled on-site like high-tech Lego sets. This contrasts with the bespoke, mega-project approach of old-school plants.

How Do They Work?

Like any nuclear reactor, SMRs generate energy through fission—splitting atoms (usually uranium) to release heat. That heat turns water into steam, which spins turbines to produce electricity. What’s different is the scale and design. SMRs often use simplified systems—fewer pumps, passive safety features (like natural cooling if power fails), and sometimes even alternative fuels like thorium or recycled waste. The goal? Less complexity, lower risk.

Why Are They a Big Deal?

Size and Flexibility: They’re compact—some fit on a few acres versus the sprawling campuses of traditional plants. This makes them ideal for remote areas, islands, or military bases. You could even plop one next to a wind farm to balance intermittent power.

Cost: Building a giant reactor can cost $10 billion and take a decade, with delays and overruns galore (looking at you, Vogtle in Georgia). SMRs aim for $1-3 billion and a 3-5 year timeline, thanks to factory production and standardized designs.

Safety: Smaller size means less fuel to manage, and many SMRs lean on “passive” safety—think gravity or convection kicking in during a shutdown, no human intervention needed. Post-Fukushima, that’s a selling point.

Scalability: Need more power later? Add another module. It’s like upgrading your phone instead of buying a whole new computer.

Who’s Behind Them?

Companies like NuScale (U.S.) are leading the charge—their 77-megawatt SMR design got U.S. regulatory approval in 2020. Rolls-Royce (UK) is pitching 470-megawatt units for Europe. Russia’s got floating SMRs on barges, and China’s testing high-temperature gas-cooled versions. Even Bill Gates’ TerraPower is in the game, blending SMR tech with molten salt for next-level efficiency.
Challenges?
They’re not perfect. Upfront costs are still steep for unproven designs, and mass production (key to slashing prices) hasn’t fully kicked in yet—NuScale’s first project in Utah hit a snag with rising costs in 2023. Waste’s still an issue, though some SMRs aim to burn it down more efficiently. And regulators, used to big reactors, are slow to adapt to this pint-sized paradigm.
The Bottom Line
SMRs are nuclear power reimagined—smaller, nimbler, and pitched as a bridge between renewables and the grid’s relentless demand. They’re not here to replace everything, but they could slot into a carbon-free future where giant plants or patchy solar won’t cut it. If the economics and politics align, they might just be nuclear’s ticket out of the doghouse.

Thorium reactors are an alternative take on nuclear energy, swapping out uranium for thorium—a metal that’s more abundant, potentially safer, and produces less long-lived waste. They’ve been kicking around as a concept since the 1950s but are now getting fresh buzz as part of nuclear’s comeback. Let’s dig into what they are, how they work, and why they’re intriguing yet elusive.

What’s Thorium?

Thorium is a mildly radioactive element (symbol Th, atomic number 90) found in rocks and soil—about three to four times more common than uranium in the Earth’s crust. Places like India, Australia, and the U.S. have massive deposits; India alone sits on 25% of the world’s reserves. Unlike uranium, thorium isn’t fissile on its own—it doesn’t split and release energy directly. Instead, it’s “fertile,” meaning it needs a kickstart to turn into something that can sustain a chain reaction.

How Do Thorium Reactors Work?

Most thorium reactor designs—especially the buzzworthy ones—revolve around a type called the molten salt reactor (MSR), often paired with thorium in a setup dubbed LFTR (Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor, pronounced “lifter”). Here’s the gist:
Fuel Setup: Thorium is mixed into a molten salt (like lithium fluoride) that doubles as both fuel and coolant. This liquid sloshes around at high temperatures (600-700°C) but low pressure—unlike water in traditional reactors, which needs heavy containment.

Conversion: Thorium-232 absorbs a neutron (from a starter like uranium-233 or plutonium) and transforms into uranium-233 via a two-step decay process. U-233 is fissile—it splits and releases energy.

Energy Production: That fission heats the salt, which transfers its heat to a secondary loop (often another salt or gas), driving turbines to make electricity.

Self-Regulation: The liquid fuel can expand if it gets too hot, slowing the reaction naturally—a neat safety trick.

Why Thorium’s Cool

Abundance: There’s so much thorium out there—enough to power the planet for centuries, some say. India’s pushing it hard because they’ve got tons and want energy independence.

Less Waste: Thorium cycles produce shorter-lived radioactive byproducts. Transuranic wastes (like plutonium) that stick around for tens of thousands of years in uranium reactors are minimal here. Most thorium waste decays to safe levels in 300-500 years—still long, but way more manageable.

Safety: MSRs can’t “melt down” like solid-fuel reactors. If something goes wrong, the liquid salt can drain into a tank where it solidifies, stopping the reaction. Plus, thorium’s high melting point and stable chemistry reduce risks.

Non-Proliferation: Uranium-233 is theoretically weaponizable, but it’s harder to refine into bombs than uranium-235 or plutonium-239, and it often comes with pesky contaminants (like U-232) that scream “I’m here” to detectors. Less proliferation headache.

Efficiency: Thorium reactors can theoretically “breed” more fuel than they consume, squeezing more energy out of the same material compared to uranium’s once-through cycle.

The Catch

Thorium’s not a silver bullet—it’s still a tough nut to crack:
Tech Hurdles: Molten salts are corrosive as hell, eating through pipes and containment over time. Finding durable materials (like Hastelloy or graphite) is a materials science grind.

Startup Fuel: You need a fissile kick—like U-233 or plutonium—to get the thorium going. Producing that starter fuel isn’t trivial, especially since U-233 isn’t naturally abundant.

No Big Players: Traditional reactors have decades of infrastructure and expertise. Thorium’s mostly experimental—Oak Ridge ran an MSR in the ‘60s, but it never scaled. Today’s efforts are scattered, from India’s test reactors to China’s 2-megawatt prototype started in 2021.

Cost: Building and licensing a whole new reactor type is a money pit. Investors and governments prefer tweaking what works (uranium) over betting on thorium’s long game.

Regulation: Nuclear rules are built for uranium and solid fuel. Thorium’s liquid-fuel weirdness doesn’t fit the mold, slowing approvals.

Who’s Doing It?

India: They’ve got a three-stage nuclear plan with thorium at the endgame, testing it in their Advanced Heavy Water Reactor. They’re motivated—energy demand’s soaring, and they’ve got the thorium stash.

China: They fired up a small thorium MSR in the Gobi Desert in 2021, aiming to scale by 2030. Classic China—big bets, quiet progress.

Private Sector: Companies like Flibe Energy (U.S.) and ThorCon are pitching thorium MSRs, but they’re mostly at the “cool PowerPoint” stage, not construction.

History: The U.S. flirted with thorium at Oak Ridge, then ditched it for uranium (partly because Cold War bombs needed plutonium, which uranium cycles churn out better).

Why Now?

Thorium’s comeback ties into nuclear’s broader resurgence—climate panic, energy security, and a hunt for cleaner options. Its waste and safety perks align with modern priorities, and countries with thorium stockpiles (like India) see a strategic edge. Plus, small modular reactor hype—many of which could run on thorium—makes it feel less pie-in-the-sky.
The Verdict
Thorium reactors are a tantalizing “what if”—abundant fuel, safer design, less waste. But they’re still more lab than reality, needing billions and years to catch up to uranium’s head start. If the tech pans out, they could be a game-changer. For now, they’re nuclear’s quirky cousin—promising, but perpetually “almost there.”

CCRES Expert: Nuclear energy 'does not reduce the price of electricity'

CCRES Expert: Nuclear energy 'does not reduce the price of electricity'

Nuclear power plants are attractive for their owners but not necessarily for the consumer, says Alois Tost, independent expert consultant on energy issues.

Alois Tost is an Independent consultant on nuclear energy and renewable energy sources in Europe.

Germany had already started to consider a nuclear phase-out several years ago but things have moved very quickly on the issue since the Fukushima accident. What happened in the political discussion on the nuclear power in Germany during the last years and months?

The nuclear phase-out started to be a serious topic in Germany in the year 2000 at the time of the government of the Social Democratic Party and the Greens. They negotiated with the energy business to agree on the 32 years limit for nuclear power plants' lifetime. The law came into power in 2002.

But during the discussion the other parties in the parliament, especially the Christian Democrats and the Free Democratic Party were giving signals that if they became part of a ruling coalition in the future they would cancel this law. That actually happened after they have been elected in 2009. Even against a strong resistance among the population they agreed to extend the lifetime from the previously agreed dates – it was extended by 14 years for the new power plants and by 8 years for the old ones.

But the reason that launched the whole discussion in Europe was of course the Fukushima accident in March 2011. The whole of Europe not only started to discuss nuclear power but also saw how Germany reacted by switching off eight power plants immediately.

Later on, the German government returned to the original law and has formulated an even more clearly defined schedule for the phase-out. This restored law was not only approved by the ruling parties but naturally by the Social Democrats and the Greens as well.

It even became a subject to criticism as some say that when you have a law backed by such a strong majority you should insert it into the constitution. Because then you will never find a majority which would be able to cancel it in the foreseeable future.

The reaction of German industry to the governments' decision was, not surprisingly, negative. How does the industry deal with the shift away from the nuclear power? Will the phase-out affect the prices of energy and what will be the impact on the competitiveness of the German industry?

Before the government's decision, during the discussion whether to expand the lifetime of the nuclear power plants or not, the industry started several campaigns and lobbying in favour of the expansion of the nuclear plants' lifetime. But as soon as this decision was reneged, industry started to support the expansion of coal power plants. Probably because nowadays we have no party in the parliament that is pro-nuclear power anymore.

Anyway there is still a certain level of criticism towards the nuclear phase-out because many companies think that the change was taken too quickly. They are afraid of blackouts which might appear especially in winter when the demand for energy is higher and renewable sources provide less electricity than in the summer. It has to be taken into consideration that this explanation might mainly aim to support their wish for lower electricity prices.

Of course the companies state that the phase-out will lower the competitiveness. But we have to consider that there is only a very small part of the German industry really dependent on electricity prices, for example the production of aluminium or steel.

But even the steel industry, which is considered to be a big consumer of electricity, is not so dependent on electricity prices. If the electricity cost rises by 20%, the production cost in the steel industry will rise by only by 1.5%. Such change in prices can easily happen also with the costs of raw materials or coal which are also very important in the steel industry.

After a nuclear phase-out, there are several energy sources which can fill the gap. One of them is coal. Will the phase-out bring the expansion of coal thus decelerating the pace of achieving the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2020?

No. We have to consider the emissions trading system. There is a defined cap for the emissions in the EU by 2020. And the production of electricity is part of the emission trading system. There is a certain amount of emission certificates which is allocated to the power plants. If a utility company decides to invest into a coal power plant, of course they have to buy the emissions certificates for the power plant as well. Nobody really knows how the price of the certificates will develop.

Nowadays the prices of the certificates are very low and it seems to be profitable to invest into a coal power plant. There are also many gas power plants that have been built or are under construction in Germany.

This is maybe because the companies await the rise in the prices of the emission certificates when less and less of them will be allocated. So if somebody says that a new coal power plant will cause a rise in CO2 emission, it is not true because the amount is defined and no more emission certificates will be allocated just because a new power plant is being built.

A nuclear power plant does not reduce the carbon dioxide emissions either. Nuclear plants simply do not buy any carbon dioxide certificates and in fact the use of the nuclear power lowers the price of the certificates. I have never heard about this aspect in the Czech public discussion.

In Germany this aspect was publicly discussed already before Fukushima when the government supported the expansion of the nuclear power plants lifetime and was explaining that it will decrease the carbon dioxide emission – but this was not true. The carbon dioxide certificates get cheaper with expanding the use of the nuclear power. You could see it after Fukushima when the certificates immediately became more expensive by nearly 2 euros per tonne.

Another way to fill the gap is renewable energy. To which extent is Germany fulfilling the 2020 target for renewables?

Germany has nearly 20 % of renewable energy in the electricity production; it was 17 % by the end of 2010. However, the 20-20-20 bill does not only consider electricity production but the share of the renewable energy in the final electricity consumption which means electricity, heat and mobility. And in this respect, Germany is far away from having reached the 20 % – at the moment the country is at 11 %. But Germany does not have to reach 20 % as each country has its individual goals. It is 18 % for Germany which has to be reached in 2020 in comparison to 1990.

What is the role of the solar energy in German renewables? Similar to the Czech Republic, in Germany there has also been a boom of the photovoltaics. Is it profitable to support solar energy even though the geographical conditions are not ideal for that in Germany?

Photovoltaics are for sure not the most efficient way to produce renewable energy in Germany because considering that they contribute only 14.2 % to the overall renewable electricity production, their share in subsidies for renewables is 38.6 %. If we consider the current situation it is not so easy for Germany to install solar panels for example in Spain or North Africa because nowadays we do not have sufficient transmission capacities to bring the electricity to Germany. But it is one of the concepts for the future how to realise the idea to produce the renewable energy where it is the most efficient and to transmit it to other regions.

Is it possible to realise similar project as for example the Desertec concept focusing on North-South interconnection and the collective use of solar energy from North Africa and wind energy from North-West Europe?

Yes, it is technically possible already today. However if you see the map, you see that some of the countries supposed to take part have a problem with political instability. So we are rather facing political issues than the technical ones in this question.

The Fraunhofer-Institute for Wind Energy and Energy System Technology institute in Germany has calculated that using renewable technologies available today and a super grid in Europe and North Africa, the price of one MWh fed into the German grid is around 50€. That's very close to today's electricity price at the energy exchange.

But there are also other problems because we would need to strengthen the transmission grid. In Germany this would face a strong opposition of the population of course because usually people want to have clean energy but nobody wants to have wind mills or transmission lines in his garden.

You mentioned before that despite the usual notions, nuclear power does not push down the electricity price in favour of the customer. What is the reason for that?

The price of electricity is formed at the energy exchange and it is always determined by the most expensive power plant which is necessary to meet demand. So we start with those power plants having the lowest marginal variable generation costs and those are usually the nuclear power plants. Then we take the next more expensive power plants which are for example the lignite power plants. And usually it is the gas power plant which is the most expensive and determines the price of electricity. Nuclear power plants are hardly ever the ones deciding the price.

Every power plant gets paid the price which is necessary to pay the most expensive power plant, the so-called marginal power plant. Therefore operating a nuclear power plant is highly attractive for its owner.

If you replace the capacity of a nuclear power plant for example by the capacity of a coal power plant, the price will not change because it is still the natural gas power plant being the most expensive one and deciding about the price. It is a question of capacity. You need sufficient generation capacity in order to keep the prices low.

But if you provide this capacity by nuclear power plants, coal power plants or any other power plant with low variable cost, it will not have an impact on the price. Now somebody can say that when the German power plants were switched off after Fukushima, the prices went up, but this was because the capacity was not replaced by cheap power plants as for example coal but from the power plants which were not in operation before, being outside the marginal price, for example gas power plants.

This is a question of who gains and who pays. When somebody says that the nuclear power plant is cheap, it is for the owner but not necessarily for the consumer.More info at solarserdar@gmail.com

Croatian Center of Renewable Energy Sources (CCRES)