High initial costs, problems with radioactivity and waste disposal, and memories of tragic accidents have all contributed to Europe’s reluctance to embrace nuclear energy in recent decades.
But the de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz amid the US-Iranian war has exposed the continent’s vulnerability to disruptions to energy imports, and nuclear power could provide a lifeline to Europe.
IEA chief Fatih Birol previously told CNBC that nuclear power would receive a “boost” from the supply crisis and called on governments to build resilience with alternative energy sources.
Nuclear energy has significantly lower emissions than fossil fuels, the plant occupies minimal landscape space, and nuclear reactors are extremely reliable in all weather conditions.
“I think nuclear power has to play a big role in solving this problem in Europe,” Chris Seiple, vice chairman of power and renewables at Wood Mackenzie, told CNBC.
The United States, China, and France are all well-positioned to cope with the supply shock caused by the war, in part because they are the world’s three largest producers of nuclear energy.
“If we don’t have renewable energy supplies, we’re going to either have to have higher energy costs to import energy from elsewhere or we’re going to have to build some nuclear power,” Michael Brown, global investment strategist at Franklin Templeton, told CNBC.
“As France has shown, it’s expensive but very efficient. French energy prices are significantly lower than German prices.”
EDF nuclear power plant in France.
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images
France is Europe’s leader in the space field, meeting more than 60% of its energy needs with nuclear power.
More countries are also taking action. Climate Minister Kim Sung-hwan said the Iran war is “an important turning point” for South Korea in its transition from oil to alternative oil.
In an interview with CNBC’s Lisa Kim, Seong-hwan said nuclear power and renewable energy will form the “two central pillars” of future energy supply.
This raises the question of whether other European countries, such as the UK and Germany, which have been primarily decommissioning nuclear reactors for decades, will seek to increase their nuclear capacity to better insulate against future energy supply shocks.
from a long-term perspective
Analysts say there is a strong argument for increasing the importance of nuclear power as a key element of European countries’ energy strategies.
According to Eurostat data, nuclear power will account for just 11.8% of Europe’s total energy mix in 2025, while oil and gas will still account for more than a third.
“The easiest way to ensure energy security is to diversify sources of supply,” Adnan Shihab El-Din, a senior visiting fellow at the Oxford Energy Institute, told CNBC.
“The mistake that Germany and many other European countries made was to believe that nuclear power was bad and prioritize ideology.”
However, getting a plant up and running can take decades. Work on Britain’s Hinkley Point C, which will be the first nuclear reactor in more than 30 years, began in 2016 and is not expected to be completed until near the end of the decade.
It will power 6 million people and provide 7% of the country’s electricity.
France’s Flamanville 3, which opened in 2024, took 17 years to become operational.
“By the time the nuclear power plants that come online today actually come online, the energy landscape could be very different,” Chris Ilett, a research fellow at the Chatham House Center for the Environment and Society, told CNBC. “Renewable projects will also be able to get up and running faster.”
Wood Mackenzie’s Seiple said the key to the success of European nuclear projects will be finding ways to build them more cheaply, but that may mean relying on cheaper technology from China.
“The rest of the world, except for the United States and Europe, is finding ways to build cost-competitive nuclear facilities,” he added.
“It’s more a matter of regulation and building the workforce to support it.”
However, cooperation seems unlikely.
Chatham House’s Aylett added: “In principle, working with Chinese companies to deploy nuclear power in Europe could be cheaper and faster, but given concerns about security and the loss of strategic industries, politically it seems like a long way off.”
public perception
Two of the costliest nuclear disasters in history, Chernobyl in 1986 and Fukushima in 2011, both tainted technology in the public’s eyes and led politicians to decommission projects.
But Aylett said Europe’s second energy crisis in four years could be changing public attitudes.
“Nuclear energy is considered a ‘domestic’ energy source because its supply chain is less exposed to geopolitical turmoil and price shocks than oil and gas,” he said.
“The political situation is clearly improving, with governments in Europe and abroad revising past moratoriums and pledging to promote nuclear power.”
But the task of preparing future generations to deal with the nuances of the nuclear debate is “not for the faint of heart,” Shihab El-Din said.
“You can’t just come and go. We need to bring back education, because it allows people to support politicians and politicians to respond to people.”
