Faced with new energy shock, Europe asks if reviving nuclear is the answer

With a pit in their stomach, families and industries across Europe are watching gas prices and the cost of filling vehicles with petrol spiral.

While the UK government has told voters pretty much to keep calm and carry on, the European Commission – the EU’s executive arm – has called on people to work more from home and to travel a lot less.

Policymakers warn things could get much worse – depending on what happens next in the Middle East. Yet it feels like only yesterday that Europeans faced a cost-of-living crisis on the back of spiralling energy costs and inflation following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

This means conversations in Europe are turning (again) to the issue of energy independence.

And nuclear energy seems to be back in fashion as part of a home-grown European energy mix – in the UK as well as the EU. But how quick a fix can nuclear be – and how safe and reliable is it really?

At the recent European Nuclear Energy Summit in Paris, European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen, who perhaps forgot she was a minister in the German government when it took the decision to phase out nuclear power plants in 2011, described Europe broadly turning its back on nuclear as a “strategic mistake”.

In 1990, Europe produced around a third of its electricity from nuclear power. That has now fallen to an average of 15%, leaving the continent “completely dependent on expensive and volatile imports” of fossil fuels, she said, putting Europe at a disadvantage compared with other regions of the world.

Europe imports more than 50% of its energy. Mainly oil and gas.

This leaves the continent vulnerable to unexpected reductions in supply, as was the case with Russia after Europe imposed energy export sanctions, or price increases on the global market, as we are now seeing because of Iran’s strangling of energy exports via the Strait of Hormuz.

Gas prices rise at a similar rate across Europe but the impact on electricity prices varies depending on each country’s energy mix.

In Spain – which has invested heavily in wind and solar power – the average electricity price for the rest of 2026 is forecast at around half of Italy’s, where gas sets the electricity price 90% of the time.

France is Europe’s largest nuclear producer. It generates about 65% of its electricity from nuclear power. Based on future contracts, German electricity prices for next month are five times those of France – an eye-watering contrast.

Germany phased out nuclear power following the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan. This left the energy-hungry industries that traditionally power the German economy – cars and chemicals – hugely gas-dependent.

This week, Berlin’s top economic research institutes more than halved their growth forecasts for 2026 to a predicted 0.6% of GDP because of global price hikes for gas.

A renewed enthusiasm for nuclear power is palpable in Europe:

Italy is preparing draft laws to repeal its longstanding ban

Belgium seems to be making a complete U-turn after years of reluctance about investing in nuclear energy

Greece, historically cautious because of seismic concerns, has opened a public debate on advanced reactor designs

Sweden reversed a four-decade old decision to abandon nuclear technology

In the UK, Chancellor Rachel Reeves recently announced streamlining regulation to help advance nuclear projects.

“To build national resilience, drive energy security and deliver economic growth, we need nuclear,” said Reeves.

New polling from YouGov suggests growing support for nuclear energy in Scotland, with the majority of people now backing it as part of the country’s energy supply.
No prizes for guessing that France is the loudest nuclear cheerleader. President Emmanuel Macron is ever eager to point to the industry’s credentials as a low carbon-emitter, potentially helping the EU towards its net zero goals.

He told Europe’s nuclear summit that “nuclear power is key to reconciling both independence, and thus energy sovereignty, with decarbonisation, and thus carbon neutrality”.

How about continuing to build out renewables, continuing to prepare the grid for it, adding storage and actually pushing EV V2G ahead?

We’ve hade the answer for years, but just don’t move.

As far as nuclear, wake me up when someone can build and operate it in an economically feasible way that doesn’t involve the power company pocketing the profits and leaving the decommissioning and other risks on society.

Not really worth it. To expensive to build. And still costs more then renewables. Especially since you still have to rely on foreign powers to fuel your nuclear power plants and after the current crisis even the last one should realize it is not worth to rely on foreign countries regarding such important stuff.

Yeah so we can have electricity in 20 years because that would be the average time to build a new NPP. IF we find anyone to spend 15+ billions in advance without making any cent in return for that time. Not going to happen 🤣

The nuclear revival debate keeps running into the same problem nobody wants to name directly: the lead times make it irrelevant for the current crisis, and the costs make it hard to justify even for the next one.

France just brought Flamanville 3 online, its first new reactor in 25 years. Construction took 17 years, the final bill reached €23.7 billion (seven times the original estimate, per the Cour des Comptes), and the plant needs roughly €138/MWh just to break even at the reactor gate. That is before a single kilowatt-hour reaches anyone’s home. Stack on top of that France’s mandatory grid and transmission fee (TURPE, roughly €60/MWh), excise duty (roughly €30/MWh), and 20% VAT, and a kilowatt-hour produced entirely at Flamanville cost levels lands at roughly €0.38 to €0.40/kWh for a household consumer.

By the way the current French regulated tariff (EDF Tarif Bleu) is~€0.22 to €0.24/kWh

That is roughly 70% above what French consumers pay today, and current prices are already considered high after years of post-Ukraine energy inflation. It would put France at German price levels. And Germany is the most expensive retail electricity market in the EU. Aaaaand we all know how much Germans complain about high electricity costs.

French electricity is not cheap because nuclear is cheap. It is cheap because a fleet of 56 reactors built in the 1970s at a fraction of today’s costs has been fully written off over decades. Flamanville 3 is what it looks like to build one from scratch today.

For context, here is what the same €23.7 billion would buy in renewables at 2024 European CAPEX benchmarks:

  • Solar PV (approx. €800/kW): approx. 29600 MW installed, approx. 4100 MW effective after capacity factor
  • Onshore wind (approx. €1,350/kW): approx. 17600 MW installed, approx. 5300 MW effective
  • Offshore wind (approx. €3,250/kW): approx. 7300 MW installed, approx. 3400 MW effective
  • Nuclear, Flamanville: 1650 MW installed, approx. 1240 MW effective

Three to four times more average output for the same investment, deployable in two to four years rather than fifteen.

The legitimate argument for nuclear is not cost or speed. It is dispatchability. Nuclear runs around the clock regardless of weather, pushes gas plants down the merit order and directly dampens the kind of wholesale price spikes Europe is experiencing right now. France and Finland are the clearest proof of that. It is a serious argument.

But “build more nuclear” as a policy response to an energy supply crisis unfolding in 2026 is not a plan. Any reactor approved today comes online around 2040 at the earliest. The SMR package the European Commission just announced (€330 million) is a sensible hedge, but expecting SMRs at commercial scale before 2035 is optimistic by most independent assessments.

The faster structural answer to import dependency already exists and is getting cheaper every year: more wind, more solar, more storage, and faster permitting. In 2025, wind and solar generated more EU electricity than fossil fuels for the first time. That is the direction of travel. Nuclear can play a role in the long-term mix, but it will not protect Europe from the next shock if the decisions are not taken now.

Sources:

* Flamanville 3 cost and timeline: [Power Mag / Cour des Comptes (Jan. 2025)](https://www.powermag.com/flamanville-3-europes-hard-won-nuclear-milestone/)
* Renewable energy CAPEX and LCOE benchmarks: [IRENA, Renewable Power Generation Costs 2024](https://www.irena.org/-/media/Files/IRENA/Agency/Publication/2025/Jul/IRENA_TEC_RPGC_in_2024_Summary_2025.pdf)
* TURPE and excise duty breakdown: [DayAheadMarket.eu](https://www.dayaheadmarket.eu/france)
* CRE excise duty rates from Aug. 2025: [Commission de Régulation de l’Énergie](https://www.cre.fr/en/electricity/retail-electricity-market/presentation.html)

Edited, had a display issue with my sources.

We need more renewable and energy storage solution. Not reactors that take decades to build as well as billions of tax payer money while also being more expensive than renewable.

Every normal person defending the actual nuclear debate going on right now has to get their facts and numbers checked

It sounds sort of attractive and making sense, for sure it does…

Though there are three serious caveats France in particular, being the leading European country in that area, doesn’t want all of Europeans to think too much about:

1. We still depend a lot on Russia’s Rosatom refining industry for a non-negligible portion of our fuel supply, and waste management+storage
2. Russia also cut us from our major supply sources in Africa and the middle East, which they have taken control/got deals of under our noses by triggering coups and by corruption
3. France is seriously considering making breeder reactors – still quite questionable safety, questionable yields and return on investment, and supremely expensive technology – to compensate for the upcoming crucial issue of fuel supply and waste recyling

And they crush anyone who raises those questions on Reddit or any social media
I am very seriously saying that ppl and bots constantly monitor the internet to quash dissent on those topics and they are very efficient (and helped by a growing crowd of random believers who have made the topic a crusade)
So I’m ready to see my comment annihilated by downvotes, caustic replies looking down and ridiculing every of those points, being accused of being ‘anti-science’ or a ‘brainless ecologist’ which are typical strategies
But yes they’re real and legitimate points, you can look them up by yourselves

I am not anti-nuclear energy, but there’s a whole industry that’s absolutely trying to crush ANY legitimate criticisms and concerns, beyond all rationality and sense

Ppl should be aware of that

PS: my personal position on this is that I’m for a good maintenance of the current European park of reactors, *even if that means building a handful of fresh reactors* to replace the old and compensate for the energy crisis in countries that are hit the most
And we absolutely need to cut all ties with Russia
BUT I am not for a mindless ‘new atom age’ of unbridled development and construction, I think nuclear energy should be there and still solid to counter the energy crisis and help against climate change, but only as part of an energy MIX in which the long-term goal is for non-nuclear renewables to take over, progressively, little-by-little
Then dismantle reactors slowly as we can increasingly rely on renewables
That’s likely a century-long plan if not more, but a better one than a 100%-nuclear dominated Europe that future generations might suffer from if we do that

Note that I’m French and I absolutely know our industry and authorities have desperately been dreaming of building a kind of New Atomic Disneyland in France and becoming an even greater dominant force in the field in Europe – not that I don’t understand where they’re coming from, our country’s economy is on the decline and that + the military side of it, are practically the only things we have left that are actually *mighty*

But I still don’t want those entities to override all decisions because they’re panicking, and decide for our people’s (and Europe’s) future without our consent, I want ppl to be well aware of the caveats and long-term implications. I don’t want to live in Atomic Disneyland – we or future generations will regret it dearly if comes an era where there’s reactors and waste literally everywhere that we no longer have the financial means and technological skills to maintain and dispose of properly

Meanwhile, China has over 3,000 coal energy plants and is currently building 300 more (86 in 2006 alone)

Yes. Perfectly safe and the best source of energy.

Ye.

If you are still asking that question now we are 100% fucked. My god.

It’s always been the answer. It has always been and will be for a very long time.

Eu should concentrate on nuclear and solar. Nuclear is for long term it takes years to design, follow all safety regulations and finally build it approx 6-10 years. Short term buy solar and spread it around EU while preparing nuclear power plants this combo would be the best imho. Solar doesn’t need any complicated legislation.

Please don’t, it would invalidate my copy of Power Grid and the included Germany map.

But seriously, BUILD SAFE NPPS ALREADY. Jesus fuck how is this even a question?

Always has been.

Just need very important security and contingency plans so they can’t be military meltdown targets.

Basically underground much like Iran.

Always was

😂🙄

If it wouldn’t be including fuel and tech from Russia, maybe. Or taking decades to build.

No. Wait 15-20 years to build, while costs quadruple. Still no waste solution. So… No.