16-05-2025
Europe turned its back on nuclear. Now it's racing to build reactors
Credit: Getty Images/Dóra Bíró
In the end, it took Denmark just minutes to scrap a ban on nuclear power that had stood for 40 years.
The totemic change – rammed through in a parliamentary vote – passed with only a few murmurs from the country's MPs, two thirds of whom supported it.
'It was so fast I thought I'd missed it,' says Mark Nelson, an energy consultant who was invited to watch the vote on Thursday.
'I was texting a parliamentarian, and I'm like, 'Was that it? Did it pass?''
The historic nature of the vote should be in no doubt. Denmark's ban has been in place since 1985 and was so draconian that it forbade the government from even considering atomic energy as an option.
It is a sharp change for a country that has pioneered green energy in Europe. Around 60pc of Denmark's annual power needs are already met by wind farms and the country has set itself a target to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2045 – five years earlier than Britain.
The country's focus on renewables has so far failed to deliver cheap electricity. Out of all the countries in the European Union, Danish households pay the second-highest prices at about €0.38 per kilowatt hour (£.32 kWh). Only Germany is more expensive, according to official figures from Eurostat.
Now, the Danes will formally investigate whether they should, for the first time, add nuclear power plants into that mix, as a way of bolstering the overall stability of the system.
'We all know that of course we can't have an electricity system based on solar and wind alone – there has to be something else to support it,' Lars Aagaard, the country's climate minister, said recently.
It follows an about-turn by prime minister Mette Frederiksen, who previously supported prioritising the expansion of renewables rather than nuclear. Public attitudes have also been shifting, according to polling.
The change in Denmark underscores a broader shift taking place across Europe, as previously nuclear-sceptical countries reassess plans to rely on renewables and batteries alone to reach their net zero targets.
Several had previously announced plans to wind down their nuclear fleets following the 2011 Fukushima accident in Japan.
Even in France, where two thirds of electricity comes from atomic energy, Emmanuel Macron had proposed plans to close nuclear plants and focus more on wind and solar power.
But after the energy crisis that erupted following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and with the growth of data centres creating an explosion in demand for electricity, a renewed focus on secure and 'always on' supplies is driving a nuclear renaissance.
Blackouts in Spain, the cause of which is still unknown but which may have been linked to the way wind and solar farms work, also underline the value of having multiple sources of energy to rely on.
Instead of shutting plants down, Macron is now set to expand French nuclear fleet and has aped Donald Trump's 'drill, baby, drill' mantra by telling investors: 'Here there is no need to drill. It's just plug, baby, plug.'
'The mindset in Europe for a long time was reduction of energy supply on an absolute basis, not growth,' says Nelson, an American whose consultancy Radiant Energy Group has worked with nuclear developers and Danish MPs.
'But they have to get out of that mindset – because it's just crippling.'
Spain, Germany and Sweden are among the European countries revisiting nuclear shibboleths along with Denmark.
Ebba Busch, the Swedish energy minister, has not just backed nuclear at home but also urged other EU member states to invest in new reactors and criticised Germany's decision to shut down its fleet of large power plants.
'Europe must now create an energy sector that secures our independence,' she said in March. 'Instead of opposing it, the European Commission must make a path for new baseload power in Europe.'
Like the Danes, the Swedes have changed their minds about nuclear significantly over the last decade. Support climbed to 75pc last year, compared to 45pc a decade earlier, polls show.
Even in Germany, which has a long heritage of anti-nuclear sentiment, new chancellor Friedrich Merz is thought to be open to restarting mothballed reactors or collaborating with France on new, mini reactors.
That would represent a handbrake turn on the policies of his predecessors. After Fukushima, former chancellor Angela Merkel vowed to decommission all German nuclear power stations. The final three – Isar 2, Emsland and Neckarwestheim 2 – closed two years ago under her successor Olaf Scholz.
Yet Germans are concerned about energy security and calls for these plants to be restarted are growing.
'Germany obviously switched off its plants, and I think in parts of the political spectrum, that's now considered a mistake, because it's seen as a reliable source of energy,' says Sander Tordoir, the chief economist at the Centre for European Reform.
It is a shift that could have broader implications for the EU. It was Germany that previously fought the bloc's attempts to classify nuclear as 'green' energy – an important distinction that can unlock extra funding.
'If Germany is no longer the nuclear-sceptical voice in the European energy debate, then presumably there would be more openness to explore it as part of the future energy mix,' Tordoir says.
In another sign of the transformation in European attitudes, the Italian government cleared the way for the return of nuclear power in the country more than 40 years after it was banned by referendum.
Prime minister Georgia Meloni said the move would help to guarantee Italy's independence. Belgium has also overturned its anti-nuclear policy and wants to build new plants.
Henry Preston, of the World Nuclear Association, says the change in mindset is mostly down to pragmatism. Governments are increasingly taking a view that while intermittent renewables supported by batteries can account for the majority of future power generation, at least some needs to come from readily dispatchable sources such as nuclear.
At the moment, demand for this kind of 'firm' power is met primarily by gas-fired plants that will eventually be phased out under net zero.
'If you look at clean, reliable, resilient energy grids around the world, they tend to have a component which is either nuclear or hydropower, and that does help with having a resilient and stable grid,' Preston says.
The International Energy Agency in January said global interest in nuclear energy has now reached its highest level since the 1970s, when an oil crisis prompted western countries to search for ways to cut their dependence on the Middle East for energy.
Yet the nuclear industry has had false dawns before – and talk is cheap.
Despite Thursday's vote in Denmark, a ban on new grid connections for nuclear plants remains in place and would need to be lifted to make a new atomic age possible.
Moreover, cash-strapped European governments – who already face demands for higher defence spending from Donald Trump's US administration – will have to back strong words with hard commitments, cutting cheques for real nuclear projects.
Even still, Steffen Frølund, a Danish MP from the pro-nuclear Liberal Alliance party, is optimistic.
'The darkness has been lifted, so now we can actually start having a discussion about nuclear on a more factual basis in Denmark,' he says. 'I think that's a good starting point.'
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