Nuclear energy

The U.S. wants to restore its advantage over China in the civil nuclear technology industry. But it still hasn’t learned from its mistakes.

The debate over how to reduce the risk of nuclear catastrophe focuses on nuclear weapons as a Doomsday threat. That impedes an alternative view of the relationship between the nuclear era and global human security—namely, that peaceful nuclear technology can be a solution to a global security threat: the climate crisis.

Russia’s war in Ukraine has disrupted the global nuclear energy market, with unpredictable implications for global energy security. While the decoupling from Russian sources of nuclear fuel and reactors makes perfect sense to some policymakers, disruptions of the status quo entail significant costs—and sometimes risks.