In the global community of energy developers, there is currently a large controversy. The discussion regards the energy crisis and how to solve it. There are many proposed solutions, although no parties involved are impartial. Naturally, they all want more profits, and thereby only advocate for their form of energy and claim that it is the solution. An answer is needed based on pure research and fact, with no economic or social incentive; a collection of facts with an unbiased interpretation. When all the facts come together, it becomes clear that nuclear power is the solution. Prioritizing nuclear energy is the best course of action available. Due to being more readily available, cost-effective, efficient, versatile,  reliable, sustainable, and progressible, nuclear energy is the solution to the energy crisis of the early 2020s.

Before getting into exactly how nuclear energy solves all the current problems with the need for energy around the world, it is necessary to first look at how the problem came to be. Energy crises in the past have been caused by war, poor management, or some sort of other crisis that affected the energy process. The energy crisis of the 1900s was caused by famine, and the oil crisis of the 1970s was caused by wars and poor-quality world leaders (“World Energy Needs and Nuclear Power”).  However, the current oil crisis was caused by some of the same and more; war, poor-quality world leaders, a global pandemic, and inadequate management (“Global Energy Crisis”). There have been multiple energy crises in the past, and they all get solved the same way: A new plan. As mentioned, the best plan for this current energy crisis is prioritizing nuclear energy. 

The most important metric for beginning a new plan is how readily available the proposal is, and the smoothness of the process of transition. In the case of nuclear energy, it passes the first hurdle. The primary form of nuclear energy generation is the process of the fission of uranium to create heat to boil water and create steam to turn electric turbines to then create electricity. According to the Department of Energy, “Nuclear power…contributes nearly 20 percent of the electricity generated in America” (“Nuclear”, Department of Energy). This proves that nuclear energy is viable as a source of energy as it already supplies a fifth of the electricity in the United States. The only action that would need to occur to become entirely energy independent is to duplicate what was done four times over. Although this is realistic in the near future, the current primary objective is to recover from the current crisis. One of the main arguments against becoming completely energy-independent through nuclear energy relates to its availability. This is the argument that there is not enough uranium to supply the United States. According to the World Nuclear Association, “The world will need significantly increased energy supply in the future, especially cleanly-generated electricity. Electricity demand is increasing about twice as fast as overall energy use and is likely to rise by more than half to 2040” (“World Energy Needs and Nuclear Power”). To put this argument to rest, Nick Touran explains that, “There are about 6.5e13 tonnes (65 trillion) of uranium in the crust, which continuously replenishes the uranium in seawater through erosion, runoff, and plate tectonics” (Touran). By the title of this article “Nuclear fuel will last us for 4 billion years”, it’s clear to see by the sheer amount of uranium, which is not the only source of nuclear energy, that this argument has no impact against nuclear energy.

Now that it is established that nuclear energy is readily available to be put into practice, there is another critical category: Cost. Out of all the current sources of energy, nuclear is the most cost-effective. All the metrics contribute to nuclear power proving to be the most cost-effective. When looking at a pure cost-to-output ratio it is obvious that according to the Nuclear Energy Institute, costs for nuclear energy fuel have dropped 34.8% from $6.35 to $5.55 according to this graph since 2012 (Nuclear Costs in Context). 

As opposed to other sources of energy, according to the MEIC, “The Judith Gap wind facility is about $32.11 per megawatt-hour (or 3.1 cents per kilowatt-hour) while the coal-fired Colstrip Unit 4 is about $64.55 per megawatt-hour or (6.4 cents per kilowatt hour)” (MEIC). Pursuant to the graphs and information from the MEIC, it is seen that the fuel for nuclear energy is cheaper than that of alternatives, not to mention the entire generating cost of nuclear energy is lower than that of the lowest-priced fuel of the alternatives. A portion of the cost-effectiveness comes from availability, but the majority comes from efficiency.

Nuclear energy, as well as being readily available and cost-effective, is efficient. Purely from the fact that nuclear fuel is cheaper than the entire generating process of alternatives, proves that it is more efficient. Even further, the Department of Energy shows how much more efficient it is than alternatives. According to the Department of Energy, a nuclear reactor produces around 1 gigawatt of electricity, or the same amount as 431 wind turbines or 3.125 million solar panels ( “The Ultimate Fast Facts Guide to Nuclear Energy”). Although, these are measures of electricity, meaning they are not viable for other forms of power and do not solve all of the needs of the energy crisis.

The solution to the energy crisis needs to be versatile. Nuclear energy completes this measure as well. As mentioned, many different forms of energy are used for electricity, but very few can accomplish one of the main problems caused by the energy crisis: Transportation. Overall, burning fossil fuels for mechanical power works, but more efficient would be to burn them for electricity to then power electric cars, even further efficiency would be to use electricity generated by nuclear plants to power electric vehicles. Electricity can be used to power anything and everything, it’s just a matter of efficiency and versatility. Since nuclear energy is the most cost-effective and efficient form of energy, it is naturally the most versatile. In response to how versatile nuclear power is, an argument that many bring up is that this is too good to be true and so it must be very unreliable; however, this is not the case.

Nuclear energy is currently the most reliable form of energy available. According to the Department of Energy’s fact sheet on nuclear energy, “Nuclear power plants operated at full capacity more than 92% of the time in 2017—making it the most reliable energy source in America. That’s near twice as reliable as coal (54%) and natural gas (55%) plants, and 2 to 3 times more reliable than wind (37%) and solar (27%) plants” (“The Ultimate Fast Facts Guide to Nuclear Energy”). ‘Uptime’ combined with the ease of access to fuel and operation causes nuclear energy to be the most reliable form of energy available to us, putting to rest the argument of unreliability. Along with this argument comes that of unsustainability.

Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present, without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own (“Nuclear Energy and Sustainable Development“). Nulling the argument of unsustainability are the other facts provided in the categories of availability, cost, and efficiency. Quite simply, the factual basis of how much nuclear power the world is currently using as well as how much is available proves that nuclear energy is sustainable. In addition to this, nuclear power development is still a relatively new and rising field, which means that more and more people will be getting into the field of nuclear energy and working in it for operations and innovations, creating high-paying jobs and functional energy ecosystems. (“Nuclear Energy and Sustainable Development”, “How to achieve sustainable energy?”).

Finally, progressivity: how the future of nuclear energy begins to flush out. As mentioned, the earth has enough fuel for nuclear energy to be used for 4 billion years, but that doesn’t consider new technological innovations that require higher amounts of electricity coming along. There are many innovations already in process. Among these are small modular reactors and microreactors. “Firstly, the Small Modular Reactor concept was born with the aim of exploiting standardisation and modularisation to reduce costs and financial risk by simplifying commercial deployment and delivering the many benefits of industrialisation. Secondly, in the last two decades, designers have explored new reactor concepts. Known as Generation IV, they can provide more sustainable, clean, safe, long-term energy generation and may well be the future of nuclear energy” (Buono). To sum up Buono’s points, Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) will be used for grid independence which further benefits energy independence, modularity, islanding, and fuel security. Microreactors will be used in cars and semi-trucks making it so they never have to refuel. In addition to this, microreactors can be transported easily to parts of the world without stable access to clean water for desalinization while creating hydrogen fuel. Those only scratch the surface of the ideas scientists currently have and come nowhere close to the innovations the public doesn’t know about yet or has discovered. 

In addition to this, there are other ways to get nuclear power than just the fission of uranium. Thorium, which is another radioactive element, can be used to create uranium through the use of plutonium. This adds another 9 billion years of energy sustainability onto the existing 4 billion from uranium. During the collection of these facts, a new progression was made in nuclear fusion on December 5th, 2022. According to the Department of Energy, “For First Time, Researchers Produce More Energy from Fusion Than Was Used to Drive It, Promising Further Discovery in Clean Power and Nuclear Weapons Stewardship” (“DOE National Laboratory Makes History by Achieving Fusion Ignition”). Nuclear fusion is completed by fusing tritium and deuterium together at the atomic level. The DOE reported on a laboratory that was able to put in ~2 megajoules through lasers and get ~3 out through fusion, making for a 2 to 3 ratio of megajoule production. This is a major breakthrough as described because of the energy implications this can bring. This will again bring even longer sustainability of nuclear energy and more powerful, smaller reactors. Through all of the existing methods, and new innovations, it’s clear that nuclear energy is the path forward to new forms of energy and new technologies as our civilization progresses.

In addition to providing the massive energy load required for AI, nuclear power will allow any country to be energy-independent as well as create a thriving economy through a strong energy economy. How can countries and corporations progress the nuclear industry? The three major areas of nuclear progression are advanced nuclear reactors, reprocessing plants, and small modular reactors. From the perspective of nations, what this looks like is creating clear frameworks and regulations for licensing these new technologies. For example, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the head regulatory body for nuclear power in the United States, does not have a clear framework for how nuclear reprocessing plants ought to be created. Under the code of federal regulations title 10 part 50, the NRC has little to no guidance on what they require in order to issue a license (Nuclear Regulatory Commission). This causes companies who wish to build these types of facilities to be bombarded with revision requests, using their time and funding on barriers to licensing rather than on building the plants themselves. The NRC should expedite the framework development schedule listed on their reprocessing information site to encourage companies to invest in these technologies (Nuclear Regulatory Commission). Taking this action would benefit all three technologies as reprocessing is the largest barrier to each and a pertinent aspect of development. By expediting the framework, the United States would increase its nuclear innovation and energy output, corporations would be able to create more high-paying jobs, electricity costs for the average American would decrease, and countries around the world looking for nuclear power regulation structures would be able to use the NRC’s framework as a foundation for their own. 

Overall, when observing the metrics of availability, cost, efficiency, versatility, reliability, sustainability, and progressivity, it is obvious that nuclear energy is the best solution, For decades, nuclear power has been postponed and disregarded due to perceived danger despite being the frontrunner for each category in energy source evaluation. Fortunately, to put this concern to rest, a study by Barry W. Brook shows that nuclear energy is safer than any other energy by deaths per kilowatt-hour at .04 compared to natural gas’s 4 and solar’s .44 (Brook). The only barriers are regulation and investment. When countries and corporations work to progress nuclear energy, both in regulation for safety and in investment for innovation, all of its benefits are seen, while maintaining safety.

Works Cited

• Brook, W. Barry. “Why nuclear energy is sustainable and has to be part of the energy mix” Research Gate, December 2014,
• Buono, Stefano. “Small reactors, big ambitions, is this the future of nuclear energy?” Nuclear Security, World Economic Forum, November 21, 2022,
• Department of Energy. “DOE National Laboratory Makes History by Achieving Fusion Ignition” energy.gov, Department of Energy, December 13, 2022,
• Department of Energy. “Nuclear” Energy Sources, Department of Energy, 2022,
• Department of Energy. “The Ultimate Fast Facts Guide to Nuclear Energy” Office of Nuclear Energy, Department of Energy, January 2019,
• International Energy Agency. “Global Energy Crisis” International Energy Agency, October 2022, 
• MEIC. “Cost of Wind vs. Fossil Fuels” MEIC, 2021, 
• Nuclear Regulatory Commission. “Reprocessing” Nuclear Materials, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, May 15, 2023,
• Nuclear Energy Institute. “Nuclear Costs in Context” Reports & Briefs, Nuclear Energy Institute, November 2021, 
• Solar Impulse Foundation. “How to achieve sustainable energy?” Solutions to the Energy Crisis, Solar Impulse Foundation, 2022, 
• Touran, Nick. “Nuclear fuel will last us for 4 billion years”, Nuclear Sustainability, What is Nuclear Energy?, October 28, 2020, 
• World Nuclear Association. “Nuclear Energy and Sustainable Development” Energy and the Environment, Information Library, World Nuclear Association, October 2022, 
• World Nuclear Association. “World Energy Needs and Nuclear Power” Current and Future Generation, Information Library, World Nuclear Association, October 2022.