Nuclear Power’s Sudden Comeback

By Simon Constable

Constable, a former TV anchor at The Wall Street Journal, is a fellow at the Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise.

July 31, 2025

More than three-quarters of a century ago, nuclear-powered electricity was born in Chicago. A team of scientists led by Enrico Fermi created the first sustained nuclear reaction. It lit up four light bulbs, a relatively small amount of energy, but it led the way for much more. Indeed, the heyday of building atomic power plants had begun. In 1951, Russia started building a grid-connected reactor, the only one that year. And by 1979, the peak year, 234 plants were under construction globally.

But heydays don’t last forever. While nuclear energy was presented as cheap and clean, its reputation quickly got soiled after some epic disasters. The first, in 1957, was in northwest England at Sellafield nuclear reactor. In 1979, there was a partial nuclear meltdown at US-based Three Mile Island. In 1986, the Chernobyl, Ukraine, plant exploded, immediately killing 31 people. In 2011, a tsunami disabled the cooling system of a nuclear plant in Fukushima, Japan. “Everyone thought nuclear power was safe, then something happened and got everybody concerned,” says Rob Thummel, senior portfolio manager at Tortoise Capital. “That’s kept nuclear on the sidelines; people wanted to shut it down.”

So what is happening now? It appears nuclear is making a comeback. For one, China is betting big on more nuclear power. It is constructing 30 new reactors to add to the 58 operable ones it has, according to the World Nuclear Association. WNA also says the impetus for building is air-pollution emissions from coal-powered electricity. India said it’s planning to add another six reactors to its already operational 24. “Nuclear power is reentering the space and China is leading the charge,” says Pete Earle, director of economics and economic freedom at the American Institute for Economic Research.

By 2021, some major European countries had embraced the idea of net-zero carbon, aka reducing carbon-dioxide pollution. That meant finding a way to cut down on using fossil fuel and instead focusing on renewables such as solar and wind power. There’s a problem with relying on renewables to consistently generate electricity: “Most of these green energy sources don’t provide consistent power,” Earle says.

An example of such a problem was in late April when there was a complete blackout in Spain, Portugal, and parts of southern France. While Spain’s premier dismissed claims that too much reliance on renewables was the cause, others weren’t convinced.

Just last spring, Spain boasted it had achieved net-zero carbon emissions. That was due to a massive volume of solar power which triggered a plunge in electricity prices from 145 euros ($165) per megawatt-hour in early January to 11 euros by late March. But the price collapse also meant Spain’s nuclear power was no longer economically viable, so its plants closed down temporarily. Therein lay the problem. Solar power is notoriously unreliable, and with no nuclear power to rely on, a crash of the grid couldn’t be avoided, says Daniel Lacalle, chief economist at Madrid-based investment company Tressis.

Shortly after the blackout, Denmark’s government said it was now considering reversing its five-decade ban on using nuclear power because it didn’t want what happened in Spain and Portugal to happen in Denmark. “With nuclear, some of these renewables are suddenly viable,” Earle says. And even before the blackout, Norway and Sweden were considering adding nuclear power, including small modular reactors. These are similar to the nuclear-power units in some submarines.

“I think nuclear is inevitable,” says Peter Morici, professor emeritus at the University of Maryland. “We need massive amounts of electricity, and that is the only way to get it.”

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