Nuclear energy has experienced a remarkable rehabilitation in the public debate about climate change — once the villain of the environmental movement, it is now increasingly championed as the only realistic path to zero-carbon baseload power. Nuclear advocates point to France, which generates 70% of its electricity from nuclear power with some of the lowest electricity prices and carbon emissions in Europe, to the extraordinary energy density of uranium compared to any other fuel source, and to new generation small modular reactors that promise to be cheaper, safer, and faster to build than traditional nuclear plants. Nuclear sceptics point to Chernobyl, Fukushima, the unresolved problem of nuclear waste storage, and the historically catastrophic cost overruns of nuclear construction projects. Is nuclear energy the future?
