Written off 14 years ago after the Fukushima disaster, nuclear energy is enjoying a renaissance with around 60 reactors under construction worldwide. Even countries such as Switzerland and Japan, which had banned nuclear power, are considering its return.
2025 will go down as a pivotal year for nuclear energy. It will mark the year of its revival after 14 years in purgatory. One after another, countries such as Italy, Denmark, Belgium and even Japan have announced their intention to reconsider their position on nuclear power. "We are experiencing a global renaissance," says Dominique Casaï, founder of Uram, an independent investment advisory firm based in Geneva that specialises in natural resources. "We are witnessing a major shift in the perception of this energy source. It is now considered a key component of the energy transition."
Who would have imagined this just 10 years ago? A brief retrospective: on 11 March 2011, a tsunami struck the Japanese coast. A 15-metre-high wave flooded the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, located on the coast, knocking out the reactor cooling systems. The Fukushima nuclear disaster had begun. Hydrogen explosions, forced evacuations and crisis management were broadcast around the world for weeks, causing global outrage. In the wake of this, several countries, including Japan, Germany, Switzerland and Belgium, decided to phase out nuclear power "for good".
The number of nuclear reactors in operation worldwide fell from 442 in 2011 to 419 in 2012 – a figure that has not really changed since then, with 416 reactors in operation in 2025 according to figures from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The price of uranium, the main fuel for reactors, also plummeted from over $70 at the beginning of 2011 to $30 in January 2018.
Fukushima set us back 15 years
A new era
"I found this period very difficult," says Dominique Casaï, who has worked all his life in the raw materials sector, particularly uranium. "The phasing out of nuclear power, particularly in Germany, has led to the restart of coal-fired and Russian gas-fired power stations. We can see the result today... Fukushima set us back 15 years. The energy transition would be much further advanced today if it hadn’t been for that incident."
Fourteen years later, nuclear power is regaining its prestige around the world. In January 2025, in a report entitled "The Path to a New Era for Nuclear Energy" the IAEA counted 63 reactors under construction worldwide, a figure not seen since the 1990s. And the money is pouring in: "Annual investment in nuclear power – which includes both new plants and life extensions for existing plants – increased by nearly 50% between 2020 and 2023, exceeding $60 billion," notes the IAEA in its report.
And this is only the beginning: "The projections for the construction of new reactors are extraordinary," emphasises Hervé Guérin, consulting partner for the Energy & Industry sector at Bartle. China, in particular, plans to double its fleet by 2040, with 100 reactors in the pipeline. Of the 63 reactors under construction worldwide, almost half (29) are located in China.
These figures contrast sharply with the situation in Europe, where only three reactors are currently under construction: two in the United Kingdom and one in Slovakia. But European countries are slowly gaining momentum. In July, the British government gave the final green light to the Sizewell C nuclear power plant project, estimated to cost £38 billion (nearly €44 billion). Paris, for its part, officially announced in June that six high-power reactors will be built in France by 2038. And many countries that had ‘definitively’ abandoned nuclear power are now reversing their decision.
On Thursday, 15 May 2025, Belgium voted in favour of a return to nuclear power. At the end of February 2025, the Italian Council of Ministers approved a decree paving the way for a return to nuclear power, pending parliamentary ratification. "By 2030, nuclear energy will be back in Italy, I am convinced of it," said Environment and Energy Security Minister Gilberto Pichetto Fratin. However, the country had abandoned nuclear power almost 30 years ago, in 1987, following the Chernobyl disaster.
In December 2024, the Swiss Federal Council proposed to amend Swiss law to allow the construction of new power plants, which has been banned since 2018. "Even in Germany, the idea of a return to nuclear power is gaining ground," notes Casaï. The list is not exhaustive. We could also mention Denmark, which last May opened the door to nuclear power, more than 40 years after turning its back on this energy option following the Three Mile Island accident. And so it goes for Europe.
In the United States, Donald Trump signed two executive orders in May 2025 aimed at accelerating the development of nuclear power. The goal is to quadruple nuclear energy consumption in the United States, from around 100 GW in 2024 to 400 GW by 2050. Even Japan, despite having been hit repeatedly by the harmful effects of radioactivity, seems to be softening its stance. While the island nation had intended to shut down all its power plants after Fukushima, the country’s latest energy roadmap, adopted in February, plans to increase the share of electricity produced by nuclear power plants to 20% of the energy mix by 2040 by reviving old plants, extending their lifespan and even building new reactors.
This information did not escape Kansai Electric Power Company, one of the leaders in the Japanese electricity industry. In July 2025, the company announced that it would launch a study with a view to building a new reactor at the Mihama power plant in Fukui Prefecture, Japan. "Given that natural resources are limited in Japan, [...] it is important that nuclear energy plays its part in the years to come," explained CEO Nozomu Mori.
"Some four years ago, the International Energy Agency (IEA) announced that nuclear energy was well positioned to make a comeback after a difficult period following the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant," recalled Fatih Birol, the IEA’s director, in January 2025. "Today, this comeback is clearly underway and nuclear power is on the cusp of a new era."
All the elements therefore seem to be in place for a major revival. This includes Switzerland, where even the population is changing its opinion. A survey by the Swiss Electricity Association (AES) conducted by the gfs.bern institute and published in June 2025 showed that 59% of Swiss people now say they strongly agree or somewhat agree that Switzerland should reconsider building nuclear power plants, whereas 58.2% of the population voted to abandon nuclear power in 2017.
We see investment opportunities across the entire uranium cycle
Investors return
In this very favourable context, investors are reconsidering a sector they had fled after Fukushima. "As global energy demand rises, nuclear power has reemerged in the global discourse as one of the possible solutions to the problem, creating opportunities for investors," says Kamil Sudiyarov, product manager at VanEck. This view is shared by Kenny Zhu, research analyst at Global X ETFs in New York: "We believe that nuclear energy can be a good investment." The market hype has already begun. Since the beginning of the year, for example, the VanEck Uranium and Nuclear Technologies ETF, which includes companies covering the entire sector, has posted a return of 51.58% (as of 18 August).
"The simplest and cheapest way to invest in the nuclear sector is to focus on uranium producers," explains Uram’s Dominique Casaï. "The extension of reactor lifespans and the construction of new units around the world will drastically increase demand and drive prices up." Between January 2021 and July 2025, the price of uranium has already soared by 130% to over $70 today, bolstering mining company shares in its wake. "We see investment opportunities across the entire uranium cycle," notes Zhu. "Mining companies, of course, but also those responsible for uranium conversion and enrichment. Conversion and enrichment prices peaked in 2025."
Canadian company Cameco, one of the world’s largest uranium producers, has seen its share price rise by 45% since the beginning of the year (as of 15 August). "The increase in demand is leading to higher uranium prices," confirms Hervé Guérin of Bartle.
That said, the uranium cycle is not the only gateway for investors. "The nuclear industry is a very broad sector that includes mining companies, reactor manufacturers, equipment suppliers, power plant operators, suppliers and waste treatment specialists," explains Guérin.
Without state financial support, there will be no nuclear power plants. This is, in a sense, the conclusion that emerges from the latest reactor construction projects in Europe. For example, the British government, which gave the final go-ahead in July for the construction of the Sizewell C power plant, will be the largest shareholder, with a 44.9% stake. The project, estimated to cost £38 billion (nearly €44 billion), will be mainly financed by the government and supplemented by private funding from the Canadian pension fund La Caisse (20% shareholders), British energy company Centrica (15%), French energy company EDF (12.5%) and Amber Infrastructure (7.6%).
The problem: Crippled by debt, some countries are struggling to raise the funds needed for their nuclear ambitions and are being forced to come up with more unusual solutions. In France, for example, President Emmanuel Macron wants countries that import nuclear electricity produced in France, notably Switzerland, to contribute to the cost of building new reactors. Paris plans to finance the construction of six new nuclear reactors by 2038 and is looking into the possibility of building eight more by 2050. The estimated cost of the first six? €80 billion, more than 55% of which will be covered by a subsidised (zero-interest) loan from the government. Operation of the reactors will then be secured by a guaranteed electricity sale price of €100 per mega-watt hour. If market prices are lower, the government will compensate EDF for the difference.
Obstacles to overcome
Only a handful of companies worldwide are capable of building reactors to meet demand: Russia’s Rosatom, China’s CNNC and CGN, France’s EDF, the US’s Westinghouse and South Korea’s KEPCO (see company profiles). Of the 52 reactors whose construction has begun worldwide since 2017, 25 and 23 are Chinese and Russian designs respectively, according to the IAEA.
The reason? "Unlike China, which has never renounced nuclear power, Europe saw its nuclear industry largely stagnate after the Chernobyl disaster, with the exception of certain megaprojects such as Flamanville, Olkiluoto 3, and Hinkley Point C," points out Marc Elliott, investment specialist in Energy Transition at Union Bancaire Privée (UBP). "And it takes time to bring such a sector to a stage where large-scale deployment is efficient and profitable. This sector cannot be revived overnight. An entire industrial fabric must be rebuilt and skills redeveloped. It’s a long and complex process." As a result, major nuclear reactor construction projects in Europe are turning into a nightmare. Manufacturers have lost the expertise they acquired in the 1970s and 1980s and are struggling to regain it.
Although EDF recently completed two reactors (one in Finland and the other in France), both projects were plagued by delays and phenomenal cost overruns. According to a report published by the Court of Auditors in January 2025, the EPR reactor in Flamanville, which was connected to the French electricity grid on 21 December 2024, 12 years behind schedule, cost a total of €23.7 billion, instead of the €3.2 to €3.3 billion planned in 2006 before construction began. "Investor confidence will be gained as projects are completed on time and without cost overruns," says Guérin.
In the meantime, "restarting the sector in Europe requires significant budgetary incentives and strong political support," says Marc Elliott. And huge investments. The European Commission itself estimates that €241 billion will be needed by 2050, according to figures revealed in June 2025 in the eighth Nuclear Illustrative Programme (PINC). Specifically, €205 billion will be spent to build new power stations and €36 billion to extend existing facilities. In order to avoid the financing problems generated by giant power plants, much hope is being placed in smaller reactors – SMRs, or small modular reactors – which would produce a quarter or even a tenth of the energy of a conventional reactor.
According to their promoters, mass production could massively reduce these costs. However, despite ongoing projects led by innovative startups such as NuScale and Oklo, as well as giants such as Rolls-Royce, BWX Technologies and KEPCO, no SMRs are currently operational. "Grid deployments of SMRs are expected to emerge around 2030, with prototypes potentially emerging as early as 2028," says Zhu. "It’s an interesting investment, but one for the long term."
