As nuclear energy gains momentum amid energy security concerns and spiking power demand, global annual investment is seriously lagging the spending needed to reach the current capacity expansion goals, the nuclear industry’s main body, the World Nuclear Association, said in a report on Wednesday.
A major nuclear revival is underway in Europe and the United States amid efforts to boost clean energy and meet rising electricity demand from AI and data centers.
Separately, China and India have huge plans to boost their nuclear power fleets in the coming decades.
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Even Japan, which had turned away from nuclear energy after the Fukushima disaster in 2011, has made a U-turn in nuclear energy policy and plans to rely more on nuclear reactors for its power supply in the coming decades. The country looks to have 20% of its electricity supply coming from nuclear power by 2040, up from below 10% now.
All these ambitions, however, need a lot of investment, triple the current annual spending, to be exact, according to the World Nuclear Association.
“While the strategic case for nuclear is strengthening, mobilizing sufficient capital remains one of the central challenges,” the association said in its report.
The industry body has estimated that achieving the existing governments’ nuclear ambitions of 1,446 GWe by 2050, which would be more than tripling current capacity, would require around $6 trillion of nuclear investment over the next 25 years. That’s an average of approximately $250 billion per year, roughly three times today’s annual investment of $75 billion, the association said.
Outside of China and a small number of other domestic markets, capital is not flowing with sufficient scale, predictability, or regularity to meet global demand for nuclear energy, it added.
The industry body proposed a so-called Roadmap to Mainstream Finance to set out how governments, industry, and financial institutions can create the conditions for nuclear investment at scale.
“Nuclear is already sprinting toward the critical role it will play in the future, but for the industry to reach its full potential, strong financing solutions must evolve just as fast alongside technology,” Roger Martella, Chief Corporate Officer at GE Vernova, said, commenting on the proposed roadmap.
By Michael Kern for Oilprice.com
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