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The New Electro-Nuclear Era

From the series The world energy battle

A weather phenomenon dubbed Dunkelflaute is causing havoc in Germany and pushing energy prices to two-decade highs (Fortune, December 12th, 2024).

Uncertainty in renewables and nuclear energy

The German term Dunkelflaute combines the words Dunkel (dark) and Flaute (lull, absence of wind) and refers to a series of days when dense clouds descend over northern Europe. During a Dunkelflaute event, solar panels produce little energy and wind turbines slow to a halt. This weather phenomenon can occur two to ten times a year, usually in autumn and winter, and lasts 24 hours or more (The New York Times, December 30th, 2024).

A decade ago, it was not a problem: Europe obtained electricity from stable sources, namely nuclear power plants and fossil fuels. The situation is different for renewable energies: although they are necessary to reduce, but not eliminate, dependence on fossil fuels, they cannot escape the whims of weather. According to the International Energy Agency, the Dunkelflaute events in Northern Europe on November 5th to November 7th and December 11th to 12th, 2024, provide relevant case studies to understand how well-interconnected markets respond positively to unpredictable events.

In Germany the Dunkelflaute of mid-December 2024 caused wholesale electricity prices to soar to fourteen times their average (The New York Times, op. cit.). The European power grid and French nuclear power allowed Germany to avoid an energy crisis caused by the combination of this weather phenomenon and the war in Ukraine.

According to Les Rencontres Économiques, an economic forum organised by the Cercle des Économistes since 2001 in the city of Aix-en-Provence, the French energy model serves as a roadmap for EU members (Securing Europe's Future: France's Pivotal Role in Energy Security, July 1st, 2025).

In Germany, a change in the political attitude towards nuclear power is underway. Speaking at a corporate conference in Saxony-Anhalt in mid-December 2025, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz stated that abandoning nuclear energy was a grave strategic mistake (TVP World, January 16th). This position is in line with the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) view that a revival of nuclear energy is underway and will increase electricity production by 2.6 times by 2050 compared with 2024 (Energy, Electricity and Nuclear Power Estimates for the Period up to 2050).

Franco-German cooperation

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA) we have entered a new electricity era, which creates favourable conditions for a major return of nuclear energy.

French electricity giant EDF aims to return to its former glory to contribute to the revival of nuclear energy in Europe, wrote the Financial Times on January 20th. According to the British financial daily, EDF, Europe's largest nuclear energy operator, has set itself the ambitious goal of repeating the successes of the 1980s, when it built dozens of reactors across France, taking about six years to complete each of them.

The Financial Times of May 9th, 2025, reports that Berlin has informed Paris that it will no longer hinder French efforts to ensure that nuclear energy receives equal treatment with renewable energies in EU legislation. This U-turn comes as Merz is considering ways for Germany to join the French nuclear shield.

In a letter sent to the European Commission, seen by the Financial Times, the ministers of twelve EU member States with nuclear reactors (Spain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Romania, and Bulgaria) stated that it is imperative for the European Union to recognise the complementary nature of nuclear and renewable energy sources.

France, with 57 reactors, meets 68% of its electricity needs and annually sells €3 billion worth of nuclear electricity to other countries. The IEA report The Path to a New Era for Nuclear Energy highlights that, although renewable energies are rapidly expanding, nuclear power provides stability for continuous, 24-hour-a-day, energy production.

There is strong growth in global electricity demand for the electrification of buildings, transport, and industry, combined with a rising demand for air conditioners and data centres, electric cars, heat pumps, and for the electrification of emerging countries. This is an unprecedented increase in consumption, which creates the conditions for the return of nuclear energy. With the growing energy requirements of artificial intelligence, major tech companies such as Microsoft, Google, and Amazon are also investing in nuclear energy.

In the new age of electricity, global electricity demand over the next decade is set to grow six times faster than overall energy demand.

The role of China and Russia

More than half of the increase in electricity demand in 2024 came from China, where electricity accounts for 28% of final energy consumption, compared with 22% in the United States and 21% in the EU.

Alongside renewable technologies such as solar and wind power, whose electricity production is rapidly increasing, nuclear power can play an important role in meeting the growing energy demand. In its revival, the global map is changing because half of the projects currently under construction are in China, which is expected to surpass both the European Union and the United States in nuclear capacity by 2030. The average age of Chinese nuclear reactors is 11 years, compared to around 40 years in Europe and in the US, making the former's nuclear reactor fleet significantly more modern from a technological perspective. China is building third- and fourth-generation technology reactors.

According to the IAEA and IEA, technological leadership has shifted towards Beijing and Moscow: China leads in reactor technology, Russia in the fuel cycle and in uranium enrichment. Russia's Rosatom has 43% of the world's uranium enrichment capacity, the US only 8%, with a facility owned by the European consortium Urenco. For this reason, in October 2023, the Biden administration requested $2.2 billion from Congress to increase the US's uranium enrichment capacity. To reduce dependence on Russian enriched uranium, the US government also signed a strategic agreement with Urenco to expand its production capacity in the US (Urenco, September 10th, 2025). Concerns from the United States and the European Union regarding Chinese and Russian dominance in the nuclear sector highlight a rapid transformation of the global energy landscape.

Because of its repercussions not only in the energy sector but also in the military sphere, the nuclear revival is the result of the changing relationship between the great powers in the crisis of the world order.

Translated from the original work by , published in Lotta Comunista, , p. 18.

Total energy

main sources US EU of which France China World
fossil fuels 82.21 73.4 45.7 88.2 86.6
nuclear 9.8 13.6 46.1 3.1 5.1
hydrogen 0.9 2.6 2.9 3.0 2.7
renewables 6.3 10.4 5.3 5.7 5.5
total 100 100 100 100 100
fossil fuels 14.72 7.5 0.8 27.3 100
nuclear 29.9 23.6 13.8 16.4 100
hydrogen 5.4 8.3 1.6 30.1 100
renewables 17.7 16.5 1.5 27.6 100
total 15.5 8.8 1.5 26.8 100

Electricity

main sources US EU of which France China World
fossil fuels 59.01 27.3 3.8 61.1 58.6
nuclear 17.8 23.2 67.8 4.5 9.0
hydrogen 5.2 13.2 12.6 13.4 14.3
renewables 17.9 33.9 14.2 20.3 17.3
total 100 100 100 100 100
fossil fuels 14.92 4.2 0.1 33.6 100
nuclear 29.2 23.1 13.5 16.0 100
hydrogen 5.4 8.3 1.6 30.4 100
renewables 15.3 17.5 1.5 37.8 100
total 14.8 8.9 1.8 32.3 100

Nuclear energy production

main sources US EU of which France China World
2014 839.1 812.5 436.5 133.2 2,541.1
% weight 33.0 32.0 17.2 5.20 100
2024 823.1 649.5 380.5 450.9 2,817.5
% weight 29.2 23.1 13.5 16.0 100
% change (2014-2024) -1.9 -20.1 -12.8 +238.5 +10.9

The data are from 2024 and in TWh (1 TWh equals 1 billion kWh).

1) Percentage weights on the national total. 2) Percentage weights on the world total.

Sources: data from the Energy Institute Statistical Review of World Energy 2025 and the World Nuclear Association Nuclear Fuel Report 2023.

NUCLEAR REACTORS AND CAPACITY

capacity MW % number of reactors average age (years)
EU 97,620 26.5 100 39
- of which France 63,000 17.1 57 38
Spain 7,123 1.9 7 40
US 96,952 26.3 94 44
China 56,720 15.4 59 11
Russia 26,802 7.3 36 32
South Korea 23,973 6.5 24 24
Japan 12,631 3.4 14 35
Canada 11,066 3.0 15 41
India 7,550 2.0 21 25
Ukraine 7,407 2.0 9 36
World 368,669 100 408 33

Source: World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2025.

URANIUM ENRICHMENT CAPACITY

thousands SWU*/year %
Rosatom (Russia) 27,100 43.1
Urenco (UK) 17,900 28.5
in the Netherlands 5,000 8.0
in the United Kingdom 4,500 7.2
in Germany 3,500 5.6
in the US 4,900 7.8
China National Nuclear Co. (China) 10,000 15.9
Orano (France) 7,500 11.9
others 400 0.6
total 62,900 100

*) SWU: Separative Work Units.

Source: World Nuclear Association Nuclear Fuel Report 2023.

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