Annex 1: Nuclear System Value
Nuclear energy delivers value across the entire energy system, combining reliable power generation with energy security, environmental benefits, and long-term economic growth.
The Full Value Proposition of Nuclear Energy
This annex outlines the principal sources of value delivered by nuclear energy systems across four dimensions
Energy, energy security, environmental performance, and economic impact. Together, these attributes illustrate nuclear's role as a long-term infrastructure asset and its contribution to broader policy, industrial, and investment objectives.
Energy Value
- Firm, dispatchable electricity at competitive cost: Nuclear provides continuous, on-demand power that is unaffected by daily weather variability. Because system costs for nuclear are far lower than for variable renewables, nuclear energy can be cost-competitive at the plant level and highly economical on a whole-system basis as well.
- High capacity factors: The global nuclear fleet is running at record output levels, with an average capacity factor above 83% in 2025,[36] higher than any other electricity source, and over 60% of reactors achieving a capacity factor above 80%, with individual mature units capable of annual capacity factors above 90%.[37]
- Long operating lifetime (60+ years) with no age-related decline in performance: Reactors originally designed for 30-40 years of operation are now routinely licensed to 60 and increasingly 80 years. Historical data show no age-related decline in reactor capacity factors.[38] This makes nuclear one of the most durable and predictable infrastructure asset classes available to investors.
- Frequency regulation and grid services: Beyond baseload supply, nuclear plants can actively support grid stability. As grids absorb more variable renewables, this flexibility becomes an increasingly valuable, monetizable service.[39]
- Non-electric applications: Nuclear energy is an excellent source of process heat for industrial applications including desalination, synthetic fuel production, and oil refining. For most major industrial heat applications, nuclear is a credible low-carbon option. This diversifies the revenue base that can underpin project financing beyond a single power-purchase agreement.[40]
- Small land footprint: Nuclear requires little land to generate large quantities of electricity. A large two-unit nuclear power plant can provide electricity for 4-5 million people from a generating footprint of just 2 square kilometres.[41] For land-constrained sites or brownfield redevelopment, this is a material siting and permitting advantage.
Energy Security Value
- National energy security, energy independence, and diversification of supply: Nuclear strengthens supply security through both reliability and fuel logistics. Nuclear power plants provide large amounts of electricity predictably and reliably, directly displacing fossil fuels and reducing import dependency, while uranium's energy density means only around 30 tonnes of fabricated fuel are needed annually for a 1,000 MW plant, compared with 2,5 million tonnes of coal, making it an intrinsically portable and tradeable commodity. This also means that a nuclear plant's fuel needs can be economically stockpiled years in advance, giving operators and governments a buffer against short-term supply disruption.[42]
- Industrial base, including reindustrialization, and high-skilled employment creation: Nuclear projects generate substantial, long-duration, well-paid employment. For each 1,000 MWe of nuclear capacity constructed, around 200,000 job-years of employment are created, with nuclear sector pay tending to be higher than average given the specialist skills involved,[43] It anchors durable domestic industrial capability rather than one-off construction activity.
Environmental Value
- Climate commitments and net zero portfolio alignment: Nuclear is now formally recognized within global climate frameworks. the COP28 Global Stocktake called for accelerating zero- and low-emission technologies including nuclear, with countries recognizing the need for a tripling of nuclear energy capacity to achieve global net zero by mid-century, giving financiers a policy-anchored rationale for including nuclear in net-zero-aligned portfolios.[44]
- Resource and material efficiency: Because of its very high energy density, nuclear requires far less bulk material input (steel, concrete, copper, critical minerals) per unit of energy delivered over the plant's lifetime than most alternative generation technologies, reducing exposure to future critical-minerals supply constraints as global demand for these materials is expected to more than double by 2050.[45]
- Broader environmental performance: Nuclear also compares favourably with most other electricity sources across other environmental indicators, including land use, water use, and ecological and human toxicity, over its full lifecycle.[46]
Economic Value
- Price stability: Because nuclear's operating costs are dominated by fixed and capital costs rather than fuel, its output price is far less exposed to commodity swings. While new construction is capital-intensive upfront, this front-loading brings decades of stable, low-cost electricity largely shielded from the volatility of global energy markets.
- Low-cost energy: The operating cost of nuclear plants is lower than many other electricity sources, with a very low risk of operating cost inflation.
- Price decorrelation with fossil fuels: Nuclear generation cost is largely insulated from fuel price cycles, offering a way to stabilize power prices in deregulated markets.
- Macro-economic multipliers: Nuclear investment has an outsized ripple effect through the wider economy. IMF research has found that investments in nuclear power produce a larger economic multiplier effect than any other clean energy source.[47]
- Trade, current account, and balance of payments: By displacing imported fossil fuels with a domestically operated, long-lived asset, nuclear power reduces recurring energy import bills and can convert countries into net technology and fuel services exporters over time.[48]
