Not long ago, it seemed that nuclear energy would slowly fade out of the global energy mix. After Fukushima, many countries began stepping away from it, investors treated it as a political risk, and the dominant narrative was clear: the future belongs to renewables.
Today, that picture no longer holds. Nuclear is coming back, but not because anyone changed their mind. It’s coming back because the energy system itself started behaving differently than expected.
After six decades, the world’s largest development institution returned to nuclear
In June 2025, something happened that would have sounded like a joke just a few years earlier: the World Bank - an institution that hadn’t financed nuclear energy since 1959 - signed a formal partnership with the International Atomic Energy Agency. Its president, Ajay Banga, said it plainly: “reembracing nuclear as part of the mix.” After six decades, the world’s largest development institution returned to nuclear. And it wasn’t alone.
By the end of 2025, 33 countries had signed a declaration to triple nuclear capacity by 2050. The International Energy Agency, in its World Energy Outlook 2025, projected that global nuclear capacity will grow by at least one third by 2035 - after two decades of stagnation. The International Atomic Energy Agency has raised its outlook for the sector for five consecutive years. There is clearly a new momentum in nuclear energy. But this isn’t a return to the old model. It’s a new starting point. And that’s the key difference: what we’re seeing is not a revival of a 20th-century technology, but its transformation.
Nuclear used to be a centralized, state-driven project built around a handful of massive installations, following the logic that bigger means more efficient. Today, it is becoming part of a more complex system - one connected to renewables, digital infrastructure, new financing models, and a fundamentally different understanding of safety. To understand this shift, you have to go back to the moment when nuclear stalled. Chernobyl disaster and Fukushima disaster didn’t just disrupt operations - they shaped collective perception.
Why nuclear became synonymous with risk?
Tthe data tells a different story than public memory. After Fukushima, more than 2,300 people died - not from radiation, but from evacuation stress, lack of medical care, and social disruption. Organizations like WHO and UNSCEAR agree: there were no deaths among civilians caused by direct radiation exposure. This doesn’t minimize the tragedy. It reframes it. The greatest risk didn’t come from the reactor - it came from how the crisis was handled.
Since then, almost everything has changed. Technology (passive safety systems that work without power), regulation (stress tests, resilience to multiple simultaneous failures), and above all, context. Because today, the case for nuclear is no longer just about climate.
The issue isn’t only CO₂ emissions.
The issue is that the energy system has to work in real time. In 2024, global electricity demand grew faster than at any point in the 21st century - driven by AI, data centers, electrification of transport, and industry. The IEA estimates that investments in data centers will reach around $580 billion in 2025 - more than global spending on oil extraction. Tech companies like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon are starting to sign contracts for nuclear energy. Not because they’ve become idealists. Because they need power that is available 24/7, regardless of weather.
And this is where the key shift happens. For years, nuclear was treated as an alternative to renewables and forced to compete on cost per megawatt-hour. But that comparison is fundamentally flawed. Renewables are cheap to deploy, but as their share grows, integration costs - grids, storage, backup capacity - rise sharply. Nuclear provides something different: availability and stability. Not instead of wind and solar, but alongside them.
Optimal energy mix
That’s why the conversation is changing - from “nuclear vs renewables” to “optimal energy mix.” In Net Zero scenarios, nuclear is no longer optional. It becomes structural. Geography has changed too. The fastest-growing nuclear market today is China. It operates 59 reactors and has dozens more under construction. Hualong One has become one of the most widely deployed reactor designs globally. But this is not just about China. More than 30 countries - mostly in the developing world - are exploring or building nuclear programs. For them, nuclear is not about climate policy. It’s about development.
This is why the World Bank decision matters. For decades, the lack of financing was one of the biggest barriers to nuclear expansion. That barrier is now starting to erode. It’s not about the World Bank building reactors - it’s about enabling the conditions under which such projects become possible.
Another major shift is SMRs - small modular reactors. This is not a breakthrough in physics. It’s a change in deployment logic: serial production, shorter construction times, lower entry thresholds. Russia’s floating plant Akademik Lomonosov is already operational. Chinese designs are under construction. Western projects are moving through certification. If this model works, it could reshape the economics of the entire sector.
Poland looks late, but not necessarily out of the game
Poland has no nuclear power plants and still relies heavily on coal. The first unit at Lubiatowo-Kopalino is expected in the mid-2030s. At the same time, SMR projects and alternative investment paths are developing. The question is no longer “should Poland build nuclear?” but “can it deliver on time and on budget?” Because this is where the most uncomfortable part of the story begins: economics and execution.
Nuclear works technologically. The problem is projects - their scale, cost, and delays. France and the US have shown how easily nuclear investments can spiral out of financial control. At the same time, existing plants remain among the cheapest sources of low-carbon electricity. That paradox remains unresolved.
There are also structural constraints that get less attention: supply chain concentration (Rosatom controls roughly 36–46% of global uranium enrichment capacity), aging workforces, and a shortage of skilled talent. Women still make up only about a quarter of the sector - and even less in leadership. These are not image problems. They are capacity limits.
Nuclear energy is simply a technology
In that sense, the biggest mistake in the nuclear debate - on both sides - is treating it like a belief system. Some see it as a cure-all, others as an absolute threat. In reality, nuclear energy is simply a technology - with specific parameters, costs, risks, and applications.
Its advantage is not that it’s perfect. It’s that it solves problems other technologies still don’t: stability, availability, and scale.
So talking about a “nuclear comeback” is misleading. What’s coming back is not the past. It’s a way of thinking about energy systems as a whole: systems that must be low-emission, stable, and resilient at the same time. And within that system, nuclear has a role - not because it’s ideal, but because it addresses gaps that still remain.
