Nuclear power has been a source of optimism and fear since the mid-Twentieth Century. 

On one hand, it evokes the destructive power of nuclear bombs, the catastrophic explosion of Chernobyl, the Fukushima disaster or, more recently Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine, Europe’s largest, which has come under fire since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in 2022.

But the image of nuclear power got a boost at the end of 2023, at the COP28 UN Climate Conference in Dubai. The 198 countries represented at the conference included nuclear energy in the list of low-emission technologies that need to be scaled up, if we are to succeed in decarbonizing our economies. In addition, 22 countries committed to tripling nuclear power capacity by 2050. 

Earlier I spoke to Rafael Mariano Grossi, the Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and asked him if he thinks nuclear is likely to become more popular and mainstream as an energy source in coming years.