The Iran War Is Pushing Europe Back to Nuclear Energy

Faced with another energy crisis, the continent is reaching for a form it had largely abandoned.

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As Iran attacks energy-rich Gulf nations in retaliation for missile strikes by the United States and Israel, and imposed a blockade on the Strait of Hormuz—the key waterway through which a fifth of global oil and gas tankers pass—oil prices have climbed past $100 a barrel and global energy markets have been shaken. Among the most-affected regions by spiraling prices is Europe.

Europeans were already stressed about their relatively high electricity costs compared to trade rivals like China and the United States, and disadvantages that imposes on their industrial base. They have also been reminded of the vulnerabilities that were first revealed in 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine and the bloc had to suddenly cut consumption of inexpensive Russian fossil fuel.

As Iran attacks energy-rich Gulf nations in retaliation for missile strikes by the United States and Israel, and imposed a blockade on the Strait of Hormuz—the key waterway through which a fifth of global oil and gas tankers pass—oil prices have climbed past $100 a barrel and global energy markets have been shaken. Among the most-affected regions by spiraling prices is Europe.

Europeans were already stressed about their relatively high electricity costs compared to trade rivals like China and the United States, and disadvantages that imposes on their industrial base. They have also been reminded of the vulnerabilities that were first revealed in 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine and the bloc had to suddenly cut consumption of inexpensive Russian fossil fuel.

The urge to become energy independent has acquired new urgency across the continent. And policymakers are now making a renewed case for the return of nuclear energy as an unavoidable part of the Europe’s total energy mix.

But experts are asking whether politicians can fulfill the prerequisite of assuaging public concerns over safety and nuclear waste disposal. Opposition to nuclear energy in Europe has built over decades, particularly after the disasters in Chernobyl, Ukraine, in 1986 and Fukushima, Japan, in 2011. And there’s also reason to wonder whether nuclear power can deliver on the promise of energy sovereignty in the first place.

At a nuclear energy summit in Paris, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said it was “a strategic mistake” to phase out nuclear power, lamenting that it made up one-third of Europe’s electricity needs in 1990 but has now been reduced to approximately 15 percent. “For fossil fuels, we are completely dependent on expensive and volatile imports. They are putting us at a structural disadvantage to other regions,” she said. “And the current Middle East crisis gives a stark reminder of the vulnerability it creates.”

Europe is paying 50 percent more for gas and 27 percent more for oil, and that has inflicted a cost of nearly $3.5 billion on the European taxpayer in just the first 10 days of the war, von der Leyen said, labeling it the “price of our dependency.”

Experts have said that U.S. President Donald Trump’s war on Iran offers the perfect opportunity for nuclear energy advocates, who have been waiting long to revive the push for it as an energy source. And the real rush is coming from France. France hosted the second summit on civilian use of nuclear energy this month, after extending its nuclear umbrella to European allies. France is home to more than half of the European Union’s nuclear reactors and is a major electricity exporter to countries like Germany. Lately, it has roped in the EU Commission President von der Leyen—a staunch backer of the EU’s Green Deal—to advocate for nuclear energy.

“It’s good timing and good for the pro-nuclear narrative,” said Teva Meyer, an associate research fellow at the Institute for International and Strategic Relations. However, poor planning or a partial strategy could instead increase dependence on Russia, which dominates most stages of the nuclear fuel cycle. Unless the EU and its member states are ready to substantially invest in the nuclear supply chain—from procurement of nuclear fuel to conversion, enrichment, and so on—they may fail to achieve their stated goals and instead increase dependence on Russia.

In 2024, the EU formed an industrial alliance to support small modular reactors (SMRs) and promised 5 billion euros (around $5.8 billion) for nuclear research in the hope of turning the reactors into a high-value European export. “But these SMRs currently only exist in power point presentations” and need a long time and major investments before they can actually be built into safe and successful reactors, Meyer said. “They have two uses—as exports to countries that do not have a strong grid to absorb electricity produced by a large reactor [and] for heavy domestic industries,” such as steel, to cut down the electricity bill of big businesses.

If all goes well, then SMRs may one day reduce costs for heavy European industries. But they still won’t reduce energy dependence, at least not in the short term, since the reactors would still need to procure, convert, and enrich uranium.

Russia has vast reserves of uranium and accounts for nearly half of the world’s uranium enrichment capacities and a fifth of global conversion facilities. In 2023, European companies imported 23 percent of uranium directly from Russia and 21 percent from Kazakhstan, where Russian companies hold a significant stake. That same year, EU utilities relied on Russia to convert 22 percent of uranium and to enrich 38 percent. Even if alternative suppliers and supply routes can be found to procure uranium, the bloc still needs to raise substantial investments to build up nuclear infrastructure, such as conversion and enrichment facilities, to be truly independent.

In addition, there are 19 Soviet-style VVER-440 reactors in EU countries that are designed to run on Russian-made hexagonal nuclear fuel. These reactors generate more than 60 percent of Slovakia’s total electricity and more than 40 percent of Hungary’s. Any disruption in the supply of nuclear fuel or services could cause havoc in Europe, and that’s one of the major reasons that the EU has not yet sanctioned Rosatom, Russia’s state-owned nuclear energy firm. “It will take at least 10 years before any significant volume of European small modular reactors can come online to be commercially viable,” said Ben McWilliams, an affiliate fellow at Bruegel.

Despite the long wait and large capital requirements, scientists still aren’t convinced whether nuclear energy is what Europe needs in tandem with renewables. According to a 2025 scientific report for the German parliament, “nuclear fusion power plants are unlikely to be a suitable supplement to fluctuating wind and solar electricity generation” since they can’t be quickly turned off and on. And while the EU is planning to invest in SMRs, McWilliams said it wasn’t clear whether they “will be able to ramp up and ramp down fast.”

Some scholars have suggested a long-term approach with short-term measures, which include expanding the list of uranium suppliers, cutting dependence on Russia for natural uranium over time, and excessive uranium use—or “uranium overfeeding”—that can increase waste but still reduce enrichment requirements by up to 25 percent. In the mid to long term, they argue for “expanding conversion and enrichment facilities,” as well as developing advanced fuel technologies for next-generation reactors.

But that would necessitate a clear political signal and massive public funding for nuclear projects. Some believe that even though Germany shut down its last nuclear plants in 2023, it is furtively backing the resurrection of nuclear energy—maybe not quite at home but in the rest of Europe.

Ananabelle Livet, a researcher at the Foundation for Strategic Research, pointed to German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s comments on phasing out nuclear energy being a “serious strategic mistake,” which came about a month before von der Leyen used the exact same words. Livet said that while she doesn’t know for sure if von der Leyen was instructed by Merz to push for nuclear energy, it appeared to her that Germany—an importer of electricity from France, which in turn is the biggest consumer of electricity generated by nuclear plants at home and a net exporter of electricity to others—as a tacit go-ahead for nuclear rehabilitation in the EU. There is a lot of opposition to nuclear plants inside Germany, “especially for potential new ones,” she said. “Merz can’t speak so openly about it [in Germany], and since this issue goes beyond the German borders, it must be addressed by the EU institutions, that’s why this game.”

Meanwhile, a French firm called Framatone is trying to produce Russian hexagonal fuel used in VVER-440 reactors in Germany, with a license from Russian firm TVEL, to ensure fuel supply to European plants. And since Westinghouse, U.S. nuclear power company, is already producing Russian-designed fuel in Sweden to cater to Eastern Europe’s needs, the French argument is that Europeans are better off depending on Framatone, a European company.

“I think that the Russian invasion and now the situation in Iran gives a boost to nuclear energy, highlights its benefits. But the EU needs to sort out the gaps in the nuclear supply chain, just as it did with gas,” McWilliams said.

But first, it needs a coherent political message to allure long-term private investments. “Big capital investments take years to come online. Private players need to know what the nuclear industry in Europe would look like in 20 years,” McWilliams said, encouraging the EU and European governments to avoid conflicting messages. “If Russian supply [of uranium] is embargoed, then it is much easier to make the business case. The private players would then know how much market access they have.”

But activists have said that expanding nuclear energy under the guise of energy security is intended to distract from renewables, not complement them. “I would argue that one of the root causes of [the] Iran war is nuclear,” said Roger Spautz, an anti-nuclear campaigner with Greenpeace. “Accidents can’t be excluded, and nuclear power is not safe. There is only one geological radioactive waste repository in Finland, which faces ongoing challenges like long-term containment uncertainty for storing waste for 100,000 years. No definite solution exists for high radioactive waste.”

This post is part of FP’s ongoing coverage. Read more here.

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Rafael Grossi, the head of the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, says abandoning the idea of nonproliferation would be a “dramatic mistake.”