Nuclear Energy for Philanthropy

First published October 2024

By Richard Ollington

This is an abridged version of a report commissioned by a British charitable foundation. This report outlines what nuclear energy is, context on nuclear’s role in the electricity mix, nuclear’s recognised as well as overlooked value propositions, global opportunities to scale nuclear’s use, and finally, the key challenges to achieving this.

The original report, published in 2024, also evaluated which opportunities could deliver the greatest clean energy return on investment by addressing challenges and catalysing nuclear’s growth. This section has been removed to avoid misrepresenting the rapidly evolving nuclear landscape.

What is Nuclear

Context

Nuclear is a well-proven source of clean energy that is valuable for its high reliability, centralised power generation, and low cost of generation once built.

Wind and solar are currently projected to play a leading role in the 2050 electricity mix, nonetheless all net-zero scenarios project a need for nuclear to grow.

While wind and solar are growing, nuclear is not. Nuclear needs help to kickstart its growth so that it can further reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.

Value

Opportunities

By 2030, before new nuclear constructions can be started and finished, 300 Mt of annual emissions could be avoided by:

• Restarting prematurely closed reactors.

• Using existing reactors more efficiently.

• Life-extending existing reactors.

Through further reactor life extensions, an additional 700 Mt of annual emissions could be avoided by 2050.

By 2050, the potential for even greater emission savings lies in the construction of new reactors, driven by:

• More countries using nuclear.

• Each country building more reactors.

• Broadening the use cases of nuclear reactors beyond electricity.

Challenges

There are four key challenges to growing nuclear, with other obstacles considered downstream or less critical.

• Anti-nuclear political leadership is the primary challenge to most near-term opportunities.

• Weak nuclear industry leadership afflicts many long-term opportunities, though this does vary by geography.

• Anti-nuclear thought leadership is especially prevalent in Europe.

• Public support for nuclear remains lower than for wind/solar across the world and is an especially acute challenge in Japan.

Resolving certain challenges could trigger a chain reaction of change that unlock multiple downstream opportunities.

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Nuclear Energy for Philanthropy - Oct 2025.pdf

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