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The future of a stable, carbon-free world is often pictured as an endless field of solar panels and sleek wind turbines. These technologies are crucial, but they share a fundamental flaw: they only work when the sun shines or the wind blows. They’re intermittent.

For decades, there has been a reliable, workhorse solution that runs 24/7 without releasing carbon, yet it remains sidelined by environmental advocates and policymakers alike. That solution is nuclear power.

Why the hesitation? It comes down to a set of persistent fears—myths about danger, waste, and cost that have calcified in the public mind. As energy expert Tim Gregory argues in his book Going Nuclear: How Atomic Energy Will Save the World, excluding this energy source from our climate plan isn’t just unwise; it’s catastrophic. Gregory states plainly that achieving net zero is impossible without nuclear power.

To replace the colossal energy system built on fossil fuels, we need power that’s there “exactly where we need it and when we need it.” To think that solar and wind can do it on their own is, Gregory suggests, “honestly naive.” It’s time to put aside the fear and let the facts about this essential power source guide our destiny.

Myth 1: Nuclear Accidents Will Cause Mass Death
The most powerful argument against nuclear power is the emotional one: the specter of a catastrophic meltdown like Chernobyl or Fukushima. These events cast long, traumatic shadows, but they tell an incomplete story about the true dangers of atomic energy.

The first and most important truth is that modern reactors cannot explode like a nuclear weapon. The fuel enrichment is far too low. What happened at Chernobyl was a tragic, avoidable accident involving a fundamentally flawed, Soviet-era design that lacked basic safety measures.

Yet, even in the case of Chernobyl, the long-term consequences are vastly overblown. Gregory notes that the immediate death toll—mostly first responders—was only between 30 and 35 people. Over the following decades, the only measurable cancer increase was in thyroid cancer, which has an extremely high survival rate (greater than 99% for most localized cases). Experts predict the total number of long-term deaths from Chernobyl-related exposure is in the low hundreds. Every death is a tragedy, but this figure is a tiny fraction of the hundreds of thousands of fatalities often cited.

Now, consider the real danger: the everyday energy we rely on. Generating power by burning fossil fuels releases toxic air pollution that kills millions of people prematurely every single year. A study by NASA found that nuclear power has prevented an average of over 1.8 million net deaths worldwide since 1971 by displacing energy that would have otherwise come from coal and gas.

When you look at the raw data, nuclear power is one of the safest things our species does. It results in over 99.7% fewer deaths than brown coal and coal. The narrative that nuclear is reckless and dangerous is completely backward; it turns out to be “far safer than setting things on fire.”

Myth 2: The Radioactive Waste is an Unsolvable Nightmare
For many, the biggest sticking point is the radioactive waste, which seems like a problem passed on to a million future generations. This fear is a clear case of focusing on a manageable, small problem while ignoring a giant, unmanaged one.

The volume of nuclear waste is tiny. If you used only nuclear power to generate all the electricity you needed for your entire lifetime, the total amount of radioactive waste you’d create would barely fill a small coffee cup.

Contrast this with the waste created by coal. While the entire U.S. nuclear industry has produced around 84,000 tonnes of spent fuel since the 1950s, US coal plants produce about 100 million tonnes of toxic coal ash annually. This coal ash is often stored in surface ponds and releases heavy metals like arsenic, lead, and mercury into our groundwater. Nuclear waste is solid, highly controlled, and traceable; coal waste is massive, toxic, and often sits semi-contained near communities. Furthermore, nuclear waste is increasingly becoming an asset. As Gregory points out, 95% of the atoms in spent fuel can be recycled into new fuel, a practice France has employed for decades. And the next generation of reactors—like the advanced designs currently in development—are engineered to run on that old, spent fuel. They are essentially waste incinerators, turning what was once a liability into a source of energy for the future.

For the small percentage that cannot be recycled, solutions like deep geological repositories—burying the waste hundreds of meters down in stable rock formations—are being built today, notably in Finland. This safely isolates the waste for the thousands of years required.

Myth 3: Nuclear Power Is Too Slow and Too Expensive
The perception that nuclear power is a financial black hole comes from a handful of troubled megaprojects. Construction delays and cost overruns—like the billions spent on Hinkley Point C in the UK—have given nuclear power a poor reputation for economics.

However, the cost narrative changes dramatically when you look at scale and longevity.

First, the cost of a nuclear plant, though massive upfront, is diluted over an enormous operational lifespan. Many existing reactors are being licensed to operate for 60 to 80 years, meaning the initial investment is spread out over almost a century of reliable, carbon-free energy production. Second, history shows that if you build nuclear at scale, costs fall. France proved this in the 1970s and 80s, constructing 55 nuclear reactors in 25 years by standardizing their designs. By building many identical units quickly, they perfected the process, and today, French electricity costs are often lower than the European Union average. The future of nuclear economics is centered on Small Modular Reactors (SMRs). Gregory refers to these as the “flat-pack furniture of the nuclear world.” The key is the modular part: 80% or more of the reactor can be built in a factory and then shipped to the site for quick assembly, cutting construction time to just a couple of years. This allows nuclear to finally benefit from the economy of scale used in modern manufacturing, which will dramatically lower the cost per unit of power.

This vision isn’t a pipe dream—it’s happening now. Major tech giants like Meta, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon are already planning to use SMRs to power their energy-hungry data centers, a clear sign that the market recognizes their cost-effective, reliable benefits.

The Urgency of Choosing Evidence Over Emotion

The world is racing against the clock to meet climate goals, and there is no realistic pathway that excludes our largest source of clean, reliable electricity. When we ignore nuclear power, we are not simply choosing wind and solar; we are extending our reliance on fossil fuels, with all the associated health and environmental devastation they bring.

The good news is that the political climate is changing. In the United States, legislation like the ADVANCE Act passed with overwhelming, bipartisan support in 2024. In countries like the UK, nuclear expansion is supported by all major political parties.

Nuclear power is no longer a partisan issue. As Gregory summarizes, whether your politics lean toward environmental stewardship and phasing out fossil fuels, or toward economic growth and prosperity, nuclear power is the answer. It provides the energy stability that enables a modern, prosperous society.

By moving past the fear-based misconceptions and embracing the facts about safety, waste, and cost, we can unlock a reliable, carbon-free future. The time for rational, evidence-based energy policy is now.