On 16 January 2025, the International Energy Agency (IEA) published “The Path to a New Era for Nuclear Energy”. The status report analyses current developments in the nuclear industry and attempts to assess its potential for addressing the climate crisis and ensuring energy security.

BASE has reviewed the report and, while agreeing with its identification of the industry’s key challenges, arrives, based on its own and other studies, at conclusions that question the IEA’s overall optimistic projections. 

The IEA report predicts a “comeback” and the “start of a new era” for nuclear energy. At the same time, it points to numerous challenges, such as reliance on government subsidies and increasing technological dependency on Russia and China. Although the IEA report identifies similar challenges as, for example, the World Nuclear Industry Status Report (WNISR), its forecast for the development of nuclear energy is far more optimistic: 

By 2050, the IEA anticipates growth in the nuclear sector, based mainly on the two assumptions that small modular reactors (SMRs) will achieve commercial maturity within the next ten years and that future reactor developers will avoid the construction delays and cost overruns in the construction of new nuclear power plants. 

No market launch in sight for Generation IV reactors or SMRs 

There is currently no foreseeable market launch of alternative reactor concepts of the “Generation IV” type or of new-generation small modular reactors. This is the clear conclusion of BASE’s scientific study on alternative reactor concepts, published in spring 2023. In its “Safety Analysis and Risk Assessment of SMR Applications” (in German) from 2021, BASE also determined that large-scale commercial use of even light-water reactor concepts is not to be expected in the near future. 

Despite extensive promotional efforts, no developments are currently visible that would make large-scale deployment of alternative reactor types and/or SMRs likely in the coming years. 

Furthermore, such concepts neither eliminate the need for a repository for radioactive waste, nor do they offer timely answers to the urgent challenges of climate protection. The IEA report does emphasise the need to dispose of nuclear waste safely, but primarily as a condition for public acceptance of nuclear energy. 

It does not address the potential sustainability risks that arise from the unresolved question of the final disposal of high-level radioactive waste. Moreover, a glance at projects in France (Flamanville) and the UK (Hinkley Point) shows that considerable optimism is required to believe that future nuclear power plant construction will manage to reduce build times or control costs. 

Missing scenarios on SMR commercialisation and construction issues  

While the IEA report acknowledges the current challenges facing the nuclear sector, it does not sufficiently incorporate them into its outlook for the future. It lacks scenarios in which the commercialisation of SMRs is further delayed and in which the existing problems in building new reactors persist in the years ahead. 

As BASE’s expert reports show, it is to be expected that novel reactor designs and SMRs will still take considerable time to reach market maturity. In contrast, the IEA report reinforces the impression that a supposed nuclear comeback is all but inevitable and that it is up to political measures alone to accelerate nuclear growth. BASE, however, cannot support this conclusion in its scientific work on these topics. 

International Energy Agency (IEA)  

The IEA is an intergovernmental organisation composed of 32 OECD member countries, including Germany. Unlike the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the IEA’s mandate is not specifically geared toward promoting nuclear energy; rather, it collects and analyses data on various energy sources to advise countries on how to ensure a secure and sustainable energy supply.