A changing policy landscape is creating opportunities for a nuclear comeback with global reactor capacity potentially reaching well over 900 GW by 2050, more than double the 417 GW in 2022, the International Energy Agency has said.

In its World Energy Outlook 2023, the agency said prospects for nuclear are changing after a decade of slow deployment in the wake of the 2011 accident at Fukushima-Daiichi in Japan.

More lifetime extensions, which offer one of the cheapest sources of low-emissions electricity, and new construction in countries open to nuclear power boost global capacity in one scenario – known as the Announced Pledges Scenario* – to 770 GW in 2050, and to well over 900 GW in the Net Zero Emissions by 2050 Scenario, where nuclear construction reaches new heights.