Nuclear energy is having a global revival 40 years after Chernobyl

The 1986 Chernobyl disaster fueled global fears about nuclear power and slowed its development in Europe and elsewhere. Four decades later, however, there's a revival around the world, a trend that has been given a big boost by war in the Middle East.

Over 400 nuclear reactors are operational in 31 countries, while about 70 more are under construction. Nuclear power accounts for producing about 10% of the world’s electricity, equivalent to about a quarter of all sources of low-carbon power.

Nuclear reactors have seen steady improvements, adding more safety features and making them cheaper to build and operate.

While Chernobyl and the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan diminished the appetite for such power sources, it was clear years ago that there probably would be a revival, said Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency.

With the war in the Middle East, “I am 100% sure nuclear is coming back,” he added.

“It’s seen as a secure electricity generation system, and we will see that the comeback of nuclear will be very strong, both in (the) Americas, in Europe and in Asia,” Birol told The Associated Press.

The United States is the world’s largest producer of nuclear power, with 94 operational reactors accounting for about 30% of global generation of nuclear electricity. And it is increasing efforts to develop nuclear energy capacity with a goal to quadruple it by 2050.

“The world cannot power its industries, meet the demands of artificial intelligence, or secure its energy future without nuclear power,” U.S. Undersecretary of State Thomas DiNanno said last month.

China operates 61 nuclear reactors and is leading the world in building new units, with nearly 40 under construction with a goal to surpass the U.S. and become the global leader in nuclear capacity.

European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen has acknowledged that it was Europe’s “strategic mistake” to cut nuclear energy and outlined new initiatives to encourage building power plants.

Russia, meanwhile, has taken a strong lead in exporting its nuclear know-how, building 20 reactors worldwide.

Chernobyl’s Reactor No. 4 exploded on April 26, 1986, while Ukraine was still part of the Soviet Union. The accident contaminated nearby areas and spewed radiation across Europe.

Ukraine still relies heavily on nuclear plants to generate about half of its electricity. Those plants have played a vital role after Russia sent troops into Ukraine in 2022. Moscow's forces have captured Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, and Kyiv accused Russia of a drone attack on the protective containment structure covering the damaged Chernobyl reactor.

Japan has restarted 15 reactors after reviewing the lessons of the earthquake and tsunami that damaged the Fukushima plant, and 10 more are in the process of getting approval to restart.

South Africa has the only nuclear power plant on the African continent, although Russia is building one in Egypt, and several other African nations are exploring the technology.

“The momentum we are seeing today is the result of a growing recognition that reliable, low-carbon electricity will be essential to meet the world’s rising energy demand,” said Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Europe sought to wean itself off Russian energy after the Ukraine conflict, but its dependence on hydrocarbons was underlined by the war in the Middle East.

The European Commission has shifted its perception of nuclear energy and views it as part of clean energy, along with wind and solar power, to achieve climate goals.

In 1990, nuclear energy accounted for about a third of Europe’s electricity; now it's only about 15%, and von der Leyen has acknowledged that its reliance on imported fossil fuels puts it at a disadvantage.

“I believe that it was a strategic mistake for Europe to turn its back on a reliable, affordable source of low-emissions power,” she said recently. “In the last years, we see a global revival of nuclear energy. And Europe wants to be part of it.”

The EU is considering the development of Small Modular Reactors. Expected to become operational in the early 2030s, they are seen as cheaper and faster to build and more flexible than traditional reactors.

France and a few other EU members, including Sweden and Finland, have spearheaded nuclear power. On the other hand, Germany, Austria and Italy are among the EU members that outlawed its use.

In a major policy reversal last year, Belgium repealed a law that demanded the closure of its reactors and extended their lifespan. Spain, meanwhile, still plans to phase out its nuclear capacity and shut down its seven operational reactors between 2027 and 2035.

With 57 reactors at 19 plants, France relies on nuclear power for nearly 70% of its electricity.

Successive governments have backed nuclear power as central to France’s energy independence, undeterred by the Chernobyl disaster. In 2022, President Emmanuel Macron announced plans to build six new pressurized water reactors, aiming to cut greenhouse gas emissions and support the transition to low-carbon energy.

The COVID-19 pandemic, combined with the gas supply crunch triggered by the conflict in Ukraine, “revealed the limits of deploying renewable electricity and Europe’s dependence on gas,” said Nicolas Goldberg, a partner at Paris-based Colombus Consulting.

“France has therefore been reinforced in its strategy of maintaining its existing nuclear plants, which means extending their lifespan as much as possible,” he said.

Decades of anti-nuclear protests in Germany, stoked by past accidents, had pressured successive governments to end using a technology that critics saw as unsafe and unsustainable. Germany switched off its last three nuclear reactors in 2023, the final step in plans that had been drawn up by governments of various political stripes over two decades.

A significant nuclear revival in Europe’s biggest economy still looks far-fetched, despite recent talk among some in Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s center-right bloc about being open to a possible future generation of small modular reactors.

“The decision is irreversible — I regret it, but that’s how it is,” Merz said, noting the plant operators's "consistent answer was: ’We are too far along with demolition.'”

Russia has aggressively expanded its nuclear power capacity both domestically and internationally.

It has 34 operational reactors, including eight Chernobyl-type RBMK reactors, known as the light water graphite reactors, which account for about a quarter of all nuclear power generation. They have seen extensive modernizations, adding safety features to fix the inherent design flaw that, coupled with human error, triggered the Chernobyl disaster.

Key projects under construction include new units at the Kursk, Leningrad and Smolensk sites, a prospective plant in the Far East, and prospective floating nuclear units.

Russia also is building 20 reactors in Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East, and has signed contracts to launch construction in several other countries.

Russia has built the first nuclear reactor for neighboring ally Belarus, which has seen a third of its territory contaminated from the Chernobyl accident.

“Belarusian authorities are using the changed context and the so-called ‘nuclear renaissance’ to claim that we are acting like everyone else in the world, rather than solving the problems of Belarusians in the contaminated territories,” said Irina Sukhiy, founder of the Belarus ecological group Green Network.

John Leicester and Sylvie Corbet in Paris, Geir Moulson in Berlin, Gerald Imray in Cape Town, South Africa and Yuras Karmanau in Tallinn, Estonia, contributed.

FILE - The Taishan Nuclear Power Plant in southern China's Guangdong Province is seen on June 17, 2021. (AP Photo, File)

FILE - In this photo released by Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation, International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi, center, walks with members of his delegation and employees while visiting the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant outside the town of Kurchatov, Russia, on Aug. 27, 2024. (Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation via AP, File)

FILE - A view of the closed nuclear plant of Biblis, Germany, south of Frankfurt, on March 16, 2021. (AP Photo/Michael Probst, File)

FILE – A view of the Golfech nuclear power plant in southwestern France on Aug. 6, 2015. (AP Photo/Bob Edme, File)

FILE - The Chernobyl nuclear plant is seen in an aerial view, showing the damage from an explosion and fire on April 26, 1986, that sent a radioactive plume over Europe. (AP Photo/ Volodymyr Repik, File)

EVIAN-LES-BAINS, France (AP) — Right after his 80th birthday party celebrations, U.S. President Donald Trump is heading to a summit in France of the G7 club of powerful democracies to dive into issues — Iran, Ukraine, trade and more — that have been sources of friction with allies he will be meeting.

Hours before leaving Washington, Trump announced an agreement to end the war — a development that could change the dynamic for the G7 leaders during the talks from late Monday to Wednesday.

Just days ago, when the Iran-U.S. ceasefire was hanging by a thread, with resumed strikes, the gathering on the shores of Europe’s largest Alpine lake appeared headed for stormy waters.

Analysts speculated that tempers could flare and that Trump might not stick around for long in Evian-les-Bains, the Alpine spa town that's been enveloped in a security bubble for the G7 leaders and guests also invited by French President Emmanuel Macron, the host.

Aside from France and the U.S., the other G7 nations are Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom.

Here's what to know about their latest annual summit:

Shared values and interests, leaders' personal chemistry and the informality of G7 gatherings — the club first came together in 1975 to brainstorm fixes for the ailing global economy — have facilitated discussion at previous meetings.

“Many of the great G7 summit initiatives have come from leaders’ spontaneous combustion, created by them on the spot, based on free, unrestricted dialogue about the values, memories and even the sports, like baseball, that they share,” said John Kirton, a G7 specialist at the University of Toronto.

But Trump’s relationships with European allies have been fraught even before he launched the Iran war with Israel in February without consulting them. The Evian gathering is their first get-together since then.

Allies that Trump berated for refusing to join the war are likely to greet any Iran deal with relief if it reopens the Strait of Hormuz and enables Persian Gulf energy exports to flow freely again.

As host, Macron has packed the meatiest and potentially most contentious topics into the summit’s first 24 hours, including the Iran war and its impact on energy supplies and the Ukraine war that’s largely slipped down the White House's list of top priorities.

Tuesday's morning session on Ukraine will afford invited guest President Volodymyr Zelenskyy an opportunity to showcase progress that Ukrainian forces are making against the Russian invasion. If Zelenskyy is able to convince Trump that Russian President Vladimir Putin cannot achieve his aims in the war militarily, he might perhaps also be able to persuade him that Putin should be pushed to the negotiating table.

After his Oval Office thrashing by Trump and Vice President JD Vance last year, Zelenskyy now has "a significantly stronger hand,” said Maria Snegovaya, a Russia expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington, D.C., think tank.

The Trump administration “does tend to look more favorably at those states that have certain positions of power tilting in their favor,” she said.

A lunch meeting Tuesday on the Middle East could go any number of ways. The U.S.-Iran deal is expected to be signed on Friday, followed by technical talks on details over the next 60 days. Trump will be pressed for more information about the terms of the agreement.

If it reopens the Strait of Hormuz, France and Britain are expected to make the case that they could help rid the narrow waterway of any mines and escort tankers through it. They have been working on such plans with other nations but have been waiting for a stable ceasefire to launch the mission.

G7 leaders are also expected to talk about developing other energy supply routes out of the Gulf, including via Egypt. The Egyptian president, Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, as well as Qatar’s ruling emir and the United Arab Emirates' president will join those talks. Trump is also meeting with each of those regional leaders privately during the summit.

China, not a G7 member, is expected to be a focus of economic talks on Wednesday. G7 nations are concerned that China is flooding export markets with subsidized products, unfairly out-competing their own industries and destroying jobs. China's economy dwarfs those of all G7 nations except the United States.

Discussions are also scheduled on artificial intelligence, including how to protect young people online, and how to economically aid developing countries.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva are attending some of the summit. So, too, are the leaders of South Korea and Kenya.

The G7 countries take turns hosting and organizing activities. France inherited the G7 presidency from Canada, last year’s summit host, and will pass it to the U.S. in 2027.

The club's first summit, in Rambouillet, France, in 1975, brought together the leaders of six nations — France, West Germany, Italy, Japan, the U.K. and the U.S. — for brainstorming on how to speed their recovery from the sharpest economic slump since World War II. Canada joined the following year, making the G7.

No G7 leader has ever skipped an annual summit, a perfect attendance record for more than 50 years, said Kirton, the University of Toronto specialist.

Membership has always been limited to democracies, enabling Russia to join as a fledgling democracy in 1998 but ruling out Communist Party-ruled China.

The club has broken off with Russia since 2014, when Putin seized Crimea from Ukraine, foreshadowing the full-scale war now raging since 2022.

Associated Press writers Jamey Keaten in Geneva and Sylvie Corbet in Paris contributed.

Oxfam's satirical 'big heads' of the G7 leaders depicting French President Emmanuel Macron, left, and U.S. President Donald Trump pose, in Evian-les-Bains, France, Sunday, June 14, 2026, ahead of the G7 summit scheduled to take place in France June 15-17. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, left, and French President Emmanuel Macron attend an Indian education and ecosystem event in Nice, southern France, Sunday, June 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Lewis Joly, Pool)

Oxfam's satirical 'big heads' of the G7 leaders pose, in Evian-les-Bains, France, Sunday, June 14, 2026, ahead of the G7 summit scheduled to take place in France June 15-17. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)