AI Demand, War, and Climate Pressure Push World Back To Nuclear
Equinor Pulls Out of Japan’s Offshore Wind Market Haley Zaremba is an energy journalist and researcher with more than a decade of professional experience covering global energy systems, land and natural resources, and… Global energy markets are in turmoil as energy crises keep piling up.
The energy-hungry AI boom, war in Iran, geopolitical instability, and climate pressures are creating a polycrisis for the global energy sector, and it’s just getting started.
To solve multiple overlapping crises, we will need multiple overlapping solutions.
An all-of-the-above solution to increasing energy security is therefore gaining favor on a global scale as the precariousness of over-reliance on limited energy supply chains becomes dangerously clear.
While fossil fuels continue to provide the lion’s share of the global energy mix, alternative energy sources, especially those that are harder to blockade or embargo, are quickly gaining favor.
One of thebiggest benefactorsof this all-of-the-above approach to energy growth is the nuclear energy sector, which is currently undergoing a worldwide renaissance.
While nuclear energy had fallen out of favor in much of the world in the wake of high-profile nuclear disasters like Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and Fukushima, it has come roaring back due to the undeniable advantages it offers as a zero-carbon, round-the-clock energy source with well-established supply chains and high efficiency.
“With energy security now ranking alongside climate commitments as a top policy priority, nuclear power appears positioned to play a central role in the global electricity landscape through mid-century,” the Foreign Policy Journalreportedearlier this month.
Just this week, the United States and Canada unveiled separate plans to build ten new nuclear reactors each, marking a massive acceleration of nuclear energy development across North America.
On Monday, Energy Minister Tim Hodgson introduced a plan for a “new civilian nuclear renaissance” that serves as a central component of a larger plan to double the capacity of the national electrical grid by 2050 to keep up with projected demand growth.
“If our goal is to double our grid and build a low-carbon economy in less than 25 years, there is no credible plan to do that without nuclear energy and the clean, reliable baseload power it provides,” Hodgson said at a news conference in Ontario.
“There is no credible plan for Canada to become an energy superpower if we choose not to build upon one of the strongest energy advantages we have,” he went on to say.
| Product | Price | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Brent Crude | $102.14/bbl | +0.34% |
| WTI Crude | $96.90/bbl | +0.21% |
| EN590 Diesel | $846/MT | +0.18% |
| Jet Fuel A-1 | $1090/MT | +0.55% |
| Mazut M100 | $450/MT | -0.15% |
| Bitumen 60/70 | $470/MT | +0.08% |
| Sulphur Gran 99.5% | $470/MT | -0.44% |
| Urea 46% Gran | $650/MT | +1.12% |
| NPK 16-16-16 | $460/MT | -0.28% |
| Nat Gas TTF | $15.42/MMBtu | +0.92% |
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