The Renewables-Only Trap: How Excluding Nuclear Power Backfires on Climate Goals

Introduction: Policy Confusion Amid Climate Urgency

The climate crisis has become an immediate threat, not a distant worry. Year after year, record-breaking heatwaves, wildfires, and floods remind policymakers that decarbonizing our energy systems is a race against time. The stakes are literally life and death: fossil fuel pollution already causes an estimated 8 million premature deaths each yearearthriseaccord.org, and climate change–amplified disasters kill hundreds of thousands moreearthriseaccord.org. Trillions of dollars in economic damages are on the line as wellearthriseaccord.org. In response, governments worldwide have pledged ambitious cuts in greenhouse emissions and massive investments in clean energy. Yet amid this urgency, a perplexing policy divide has emerged – one that threatens to undermine the very climate goals leaders profess to champion.

On one side, “renewables-only” strategies have gained political favor. This approach prioritizes wind and solar power (often alongside batteries and hydro), to the exclusion of other carbon-free resources – most notably nuclear energy. Advocates of renewables-only policies often frame them as the morally pure path to decarbonization, casting nuclear power as unnecessary or even counterproductive. On the other side, mounting evidence suggests that excluding nuclear power from clean energy plans can be a grave mistake. In fact, policies that focus solely on intermittent renewables have repeatedly led to an entrenchment of fossil fuel dependence, as natural gas or coal plants fill the reliability gaps left by weather-dependent power sourcesearthriseaccord.orgearthriseaccord.org. The result is a paradox: Renewables-only policies, far from eliminating fossil fuels, can inadvertently prolong their dominance – sabotaging our climate objectives in the process.

This essay, in the voice of Stichting Earthrise Accord (SEA), critically examines the renewables-only policy paradigm and its unintended consequences. We argue that distorted energy markets and subsidy structures – when designed without technological inclusivity – create perverse incentives that undermine decarbonization. Subsidies for wind and solar are not inherently bad; they have driven remarkable growth of renewables. But structurally excluding nuclear power from similar support and policy frameworks destabilizes power grids, increases overall emissions, and ultimately benefits fossil fuels by proxyearthriseaccord.orgearthriseaccord.org. To ground this critique, we compare three illustrative national cases: France, which embraced nuclear and achieved a low-carbon grid; the Netherlands, which pursued a renewables-centric route with an implicit bias against nuclear; and the United States, where deregulated markets and political dysfunction have hampered a coherent clean energy strategy. Through this comparative lens, we will see how different policy choices shape different outcomes – and why technology-inclusive, evidence-based energy policy is essential for climate success.

Distorted Markets, Biased Subsidies, and Perverse Incentives

Modern electricity markets are complex systems influenced heavily by public policy. Well-intentioned subsidies and mandates can sometimes distort market signals in unintended ways, especially when they favor certain technologies while ignoring others. Over the past two decades, many countries showered wind and solar power with subsidies (feed-in tariffs, tax credits, portfolio standards) to jumpstart the renewable revolution – an understandable strategy given the urgency of climate change. But when these support schemes categorically exclude nuclear power, they create a lopsided playing field where only intermittent sources thrive. The perverse incentive that emerges is one in which grid reliability and deep decarbonization – qualities at which nuclear excels – are undervalued, while sheer volume of weather-dependent generation is rewarded.

In the United States, this dynamic has been especially pronounced. Federal Production Tax Credits (PTCs – per-kilowatt-hour subsidies) for wind power and Investment Tax Credits (for solar) helped those technologies expand rapidly. However, no comparable incentives existed for maintaining existing nuclear plants or building new ones until very recently. In competitive electricity markets (common across many U.S. states), nuclear stations – which provide steady clean firm power (always-available, zero-carbon electricity) – found themselves financially squeezed. Wind farms, armed with PTC subsidies, could bid power into the market at near-zero or even negative prices and still turn a profitthirdway.org. Nuclear generators, by contrast, earned revenue only from the market price and received no credit for their around-the-clock, carbon-free output. “Negative electricity prices from renewable energy sources caused by the distorting influence of subsidies” have undermined the economics of many U.S. reactorsthirdway.org. As a Third Way analysis noted, energy policies that promote new renewables while failing to credit nuclear for its zero-carbon generation have contributed to premature reactor closuresthirdway.org. Nuclear plants like Kewaunee (Wisconsin) and Vermont Yankee (Vermont) were shuttered in the 2010s largely because they could not compete in markets skewed by cheap gas and subsidized renewablesthirdway.org. The closure of these plants eliminated substantial clean power capacity – and what filled the gap? Mostly natural gas, and in some cases coalearthriseaccord.orgearthriseaccord.org. As modeling by MIT-trained researchers showed, if more U.S. nuclear plants retire under current conditions, natural gas will predominantly replace them, causing power-sector emissions to rise and erasing years of climate progressthirdway.orgthirdway.org.

Similar patterns appear in other countries. Many U.S. states for years maintained Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) that required utilities to procure a certain percentage of power from renewables – explicitly excluding both fossil fuels and nuclear from the definition of “renewable.” The intent was to cut emissions by scaling wind and solar, but the unintended message to utilities was that existing nuclear plants (which are low-carbon but not “renewable”) were valueless for compliance. The perverse outcome: states met RPS targets by adding wind/solar, yet allowed economically struggling nuclear plants to shut down – leading to an increase in fossil generation to maintain reliability. For example, when New York state activists pushed to close the Indian Point nuclear plant in 2021, they did so celebrating renewables. What actually happened was that nearly all of Indian Point’s 2 GW of carbon-free generation was immediately replaced by gas-fired power, and New York’s carbon emissions spiked in the following monthsearthriseaccord.org. Only belatedly did New York introduce a “Zero-Emission Credit” scheme to financially value at-risk nuclear plants, recognizing they were essential to avoid backsliding on emissions. In California, something similar occurred: the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station was forced into premature retirement in 2012, hailed by some as a “renewables” victory – but within a year, the state had added roughly 2.5 GW of new gas-fired capacity to keep the lights on, and annual power-sector emissions jumped by an estimated 8–9 million tonnes of CO₂earthriseaccord.orgearthriseaccord.org. Electricity prices in California rose, local air quality worsened, and the state became more reliant on fossil gas – the exact opposite of climate policy goalsearthriseaccord.orgearthriseaccord.org.

These cases illustrate how excluding nuclear energy from clean energy incentives doesn’t eliminate fossil fuels – it entrenches them. Intermittent renewables like wind and solar certainly cut emissions when they generate power, but they also “always leave a gap – a gap that must be filled by natural gas” when the wind isn’t blowing or the sun isn’t shiningearthriseaccord.org. If policy bars nuclear (a zero-carbon resource capable of filling that gap), then by logical necessity the void is filled by fossil fuelsearthriseaccord.orgearthriseaccord.org. In effect, renewables-only schemes create a Trojan horse for gas and coal interestsearthriseaccord.org. Indeed, oil and gas lobbyists have quietly understood this dynamic: fossil fuel companies often support the “100% renewables” narrative because they know wind and solar alone can’t replace gas – but will certainly help displace nuclear, thereby guaranteeing continued demand for gasearthriseaccord.orgearthriseaccord.org. As one Earthrise Accord analysis put it, the renewables-only agenda functions as “a perfect controlled opposition: it sounds progressive, it feels green, but it guarantees fossil fuel dominance”earthriseaccord.org.

Political ideology has played no small part in distorting clean energy logic. In many Western countries, legacy environmentalist groups entrenched an anti-nuclear stance decades ago – often grounded in fears from the Cold War and accidents like Chernobyl – and this stance hardened into dogma. Embracing wind and solar (but not nuclear) became a kind of litmus test of green virtue. As a result, even as climate science grew dire, some environmental organizations clung to a “false solution” narrative in which nuclear power was depicted as dangerous, uneconomical, or simply too slow to helpearthriseaccord.orgearthriseaccord.org. Meanwhile, on the political right, support for nuclear was lukewarm as well – fossil fuel interests had no incentive to champion a competitor, and free-market ideologues resisted the large public investments that nuclear projects often requireearthriseaccord.orgearthriseaccord.org. The outcome was a policy vacuum: nuclear was politically orphaned, getting neither the subsidies lavished on renewables nor the open boosterism enjoyed by oil and gasearthriseaccord.orgearthriseaccord.org. This dysfunction has only recently started to shift. In the U.S., the Biden Administration’s Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 quietly included a new nuclear PTC (Section 45U) to support existing reactorsearthriseaccord.org – an open acknowledgment that nuclear plants play an “indispensable role” in meeting climate goalsearthriseaccord.org. And internationally, at the 2023 COP28 climate summit, over 20 countries pledged to “triple global nuclear capacity by 2050”, signaling growing recognition that all low-carbon technologies must be on the tableearthriseaccord.orgearthriseaccord.org. Still, much damage has been done by years of one-sided policies that prized ideological purity (renewables good, nuclear bad) over pragmatic carbon math.

Environmental Injustice and Long-Term Emissions Lock-In

Beyond the technical grid implications, renewables-only frameworks raise serious environmental justice concerns. When nuclear energy is sidelined, fossil fuels inevitably linger – and it is often society’s most vulnerable who pay the price. Fossil-fueled power plants (whether coal or gas) do more than emit carbon dioxide; they also spew pollutants like particulate matter (PM2.5), NOx, and sulfur dioxide that harm local air quality and public healthearthjustice.org. These burdens are not shared equitably. In the United States, for example, gas-fired power plants’ pollution “disproportionately endangers Black and Brown frontline communities,” which often live near industrial sites and high-traffic corridorsearthjustice.org. Many such plants are remnants of decades of racist urban planning and redlining that concentrated polluting infrastructure in minority neighborhoodsearthjustice.org. Thus, a climate policy that effectively prolongs the operation of gas plants – by failing to replace them with firm clean power like nuclear – perpetuates this environmental injustice. The same pattern holds globally: continued reliance on coal power inflicts toxic air on communities from Poland to India, while diesel generators choke the air in many African and Asian cities when grids falter. A truly just clean energy transition demands reducing fossil fuel burning as fast as possible everywhere, which in turn requires deploying all available clean alternatives. By narrowing the options, renewables-only policies risk slower emissions reductions and more cumulative pollution in disadvantaged communities.

There is also a profound intergenerational injustice in flirtations with half-measures. Climate change is a cumulative problem – every year of delay locks in more warming. If excluding nuclear means that a significant portion of electricity generation continues to come from gas or coal, then millions of tons of avoidable CO₂ are emitted annually, accelerating climate impacts that will haunt future generations. For instance, Germany’s nuclear phase-out led to increased coal and gas burning in the 2010searthriseaccord.org. Not only did this raise Germany’s emissions (making it one of Europe’s highest per-kWh emitters), it increased dependence on Russian gas imports, indirectly funneling billions to an autocratic regimeearthriseaccord.org. The geopolitical fallout of that became clear in 2022, when Russia’s war in Ukraine threw Europe into energy turmoil. Countries like the Netherlands, which had leaned heavily on gas, suddenly faced sky-high prices and potential shortages. In a stark illustration of lock-in and policy whiplash, the Dutch government in mid-2022 had to lift its self-imposed cap on coal power generation to conserve gasreuters.com – a temporary rollback of climate measures made necessary by the shortfall of reliable non-fossil capacity. Such situations show how excluding nuclear can lock in long-term fossil infrastructure and create vulnerability. If new gas plants, LNG terminals, and pipelines are built today to shore up a renewables-heavy but reliability-poor system, those assets could operate for 30–40 years, emitting carbon for decades to come. Globally, analysts warn that the current gas power plant build-out (over 600 GW in development) would, if completed, “lock in decades of emissions” and burn through a significant part of our remaining carbon budgetglobalenergymonitor.orgglobalenergymonitor.org. Every gas turbine or coal boiler added now either becomes a stranded asset or a future source of unabated CO₂ that pushes climate goals out of reach.

In contrast, including nuclear power (as well as other firm low-carbon options like geothermal or carbon-captured generation) in our clean energy arsenal helps avoid these lock-in pitfalls. Nuclear plants produce virtually no air pollution in operation, thereby directly reducing the environmental health burdens on frontline communities when they replace coal or gas. They also run for 18-24 months between refueling and can operate for 60+ years, supplying dependable energy without greenhouse emissions over their long lifetimes. By displacing fossil fuels more completely, a nuclear-inclusive strategy shrinks the cumulative emissions that young people and future generations will have to cope with. In short, excluding nuclear isn’t just a technical or economic mistake – it’s a moral one. It sacrifices real climate and health gains in the here-and-now for the sake of an idealized vision of “100% renewable” that has repeatedly proven flawed. As SEA emphasizes, the true measure of a clean energy policy must be in lives saved, emissions cut, and resilience gained – not in adherence to an arbitrary technology mantra.

Case Studies: France, the Netherlands, and the U.S. – Different Paths, Different Outcomes

A closer look at three countries’ experiences makes the abstract arguments concrete. France, the Netherlands, and the United States offer a revealing contrast in how policy choices around nuclear and renewables have played out. Each operates in a different political and market context, but the pattern is clear: those that included nuclear energy in their clean energy strategy achieved deeper, more stable decarbonization than those that did not.

France: Nuclear-Forward and Low-Carbon by Design

France stands as the quintessential example of a nuclear-forward policy producing tangible climate benefits. In the 1970s, reeling from the oil shocks, France’s government (led by a left-of-center coalition) launched the Messmer Plan – a crash program to build nuclear power plants and secure energy independence. Over about 15 years, France constructed 56 reactorsearthriseaccord.org, creating a fleet that by the 1990s supplied roughly 75–80% of the country’s electricity. The transformation was astounding: a major industrialized economy went from being heavily reliant on imported fossil fuels to having one of the cleanest, most affordable electricity grids in the worldearthriseaccord.org. This nuclear build-out delivered what one might call “energy abundance” – plentiful power, shielded from oil and gas volatility, with minimal carbon footprint. Indeed, France achieved one of the fastest reductions in power sector emissions ever recorded, all while electricity consumption grew and electrification expanded. This was no accident of geography or luck; it was a direct result of state-led, technologically ambitious policy to deploy proven nuclear technology at scale as the workhorse of a low-carbon gridearthriseaccord.org.

The payoff is evident to this day. As of 2024, France enjoys about 95% low-carbon electricity overall, a figure that would have been unthinkable without nuclear in the mixenergynews.proenergynews.pro. French electricity generation reached a five-year high in 2024, with over two-thirds coming from nuclear reactors (361.7 TWh, about 67% of the mix) and most of the rest from renewablesenergynews.pro. The national grid operator, RTE, and even renewable advocates in France emphasize that nuclear and renewables are complementary, not at oddsenergynews.pro – together enabling France’s outstanding climate performance. Fossil fuels, by contrast, have dwindled to a trivial role in French power supply: in 2024, electricity from coal, gas, and oil fell to the lowest levels since the 1950s, generating only 19.9 TWh combinedenergynews.proenergynews.pro. The carbon intensity of France’s electricity is now a mere 21 grams of CO₂ per kWhenergynews.pro – one of the lowest on the planetenergynews.pro. For comparison, neighboring Germany’s grid emits around 350 g/kWh on average (as of 2024) and even the EU average is about 200 g/kWhlinkedin.comstatista.com. The Netherlands, as we’ll see next, was at ~268 g/kWh in 2023statista.com. In other words, France’s nuclear-heavy strategy slashed electricity emissions to an order of magnitude below those of a renewables-centric country like the Netherlandsstatista.comenergynews.pro.

Crucially, France’s success has not been solely about climate metrics; it also touches on energy justice and economic stability. French households and industries benefited for decades from relatively low-cost power (thanks to amortized nuclear plants and stable operations)news.sky.comcarboncredits.com. While other European countries fretted over imported gas or sudden spikes in coal prices, France enjoyed a greater degree of energy sovereignty. This is not to say France’s nuclear program was flawless – issues of nuclear waste management, reactor aging, and recent maintenance backlogs have posed challenges. But from a climate perspective, France demonstrates what is possible when clean firm power is the backbone and intermittent renewables are used as a complement rather than a singular focus. France’s policy framework did not penalize or exclude nuclear; it embraced it wholeheartedly alongside other low-carbon sources. The result: a grid that is both low-carbon and reliable. As Thomas Veyrenc of RTE observed, France’s combined model of nuclear-plus-renewables gives the country a strategic lever to reach climate goals without sacrificing grid stabilityenergynews.proenergynews.pro. France proves that technology-inclusive decarbonization is not only feasible – it’s effective.

The Netherlands: Renewables-First Ambitions and the Fossil Paradox

In contrast to France, the Netherlands historically took a renewables-first (and effectively anti-nuclear) approach to greening its energy. For much of the past few decades, Dutch policy heavily favored wind, solar, and biomass, while nuclear power was politically sidelined. The country operates a single nuclear reactor (the 485 MW Borssele plant) that provides only around 3–4% of its electricity. No new reactors have been built in the Netherlands since the 1970s, in part due to public skepticism and a lack of government support. Instead, the Dutch leaned on their abundant natural gas reserves from the Groningen field to balance a growing fleet of wind turbines and other renewables. The Dutch government’s main clean energy subsidy program, known as SDE++ (Stimulering Duurzame Energietransitie), historically focused on renewable energy and CO₂-reducing technologies – but notably did not include nuclear power as an eligible categorystibbe.comstibbe.com. This structural bias meant that while billions of euros were poured into offshore wind farms and other projects (many successful in their own right), nuclear projects had no access to similar incentives. Moreover, until recently the official stance was that any new nuclear build must be entirely market-financed, with no state investment – a stance that served as a de facto policy barrier to nuclear developmentstibbe.comstibbe.com. Essentially, the Netherlands bet its decarbonization on windmills and solar panels, plus backup from gas and imported electricity, eschewing the nuclear route taken by France.

The outcome of this approach has been mixed at best. On one hand, the Netherlands significantly ramped up renewable generation in the 2010s and early 2020s – especially offshore wind, taking advantage of strong North Sea gusts. By 2023, renewables (including wind, solar, and biomass) made up roughly a third of Dutch electricity, and the carbon intensity of the power sector had fallen to its lowest level on record. On the other hand, because nuclear was absent and no other firm zero-carbon resource (like big hydro or CCS) was available at scale, the Netherlands remained heavily reliant on fossil fuels for the majority of its electricity. As recently as 2015, Dutch power was extremely carbon-intensive (over 550 gCO₂/kWh) due to large shares of coal and gasstatista.com. Even after halving its intensity by 2023 through renewables growth and a partial coal phase-out, the Netherlands still recorded about 268.5 gCO₂ per kWh of electricity in 2023statista.com – more than ten times the carbon intensity of nuclear-powered Franceenergynews.proenergynews.pro. In practical terms, that means Dutch electricity in 2023 was still 60–70% powered by fossil fuels on average. Natural gas, in particular, shoulders most of the load when the weather doesn’t cooperate. The intermittent nature of wind and solar in the Netherlands has already led to periods of oversupply (requiring curtailment) and periods of shortfall (requiring maximal gas and even coal firing). The Dutch grid has managed these swings, but at the cost of foregone emissions reductions – gas plants simply ramp up and down, continuing to emit CO₂, instead of being shut entirely.

The vulnerabilities of a renewables-gas system became painfully clear during Europe’s energy crisis in 2021–2022. When Russia cut off much of its natural gas supply to Europe, countries like the Netherlands faced not only high prices but also potential energy shortages. Because the Dutch had few non-fossil firm alternatives (no large hydro dams, no fleet of nuclear plants), their options were limited: scramble to import more LNG, ask industry to curtail usage, or burn more coal. They did all three. In June 2022, as mentioned, the Netherlands activated an energy crisis plan and lifted its cap on coal plant output to save gas for the winterreuters.com. This move – essentially increasing coal burning temporarily – was a stark reminder that relying on gas as the default backup carries its own risks, from geopolitical exposure to counterproductive climate trade-offs. Dutch officials insisted they could still meet 2030 climate targets despite the coal uptickreuters.com, but the incident underscores how excluding nuclear can reduce a nation’s resilience in turbulent energy markets. Had the Netherlands, like France, built several large nuclear plants decades earlier, it might have sailed through the gas crisis with far less angst (France, notably, faced its own energy crunch in 2022, but that was due to outages in some aging reactors – a one-time maintenance issue – not a structural fuel dependency).

To the Netherlands’ credit, there is now a growing realization in The Hague that nuclear power must be part of the long-term solution. The current Dutch coalition government (Rutte IV) explicitly acknowledged in its agreement that “nuclear energy can complement sun, wind, and geothermal in the energy mix… making us less dependent on gas imports”stibbe.com. They committed to extending the life of Borssele and taking steps toward building two new large reactorsstibbe.comstibbe.com. As of 2022–2023, the government was actively studying financing models – from SDE++ subsidies to Contracts for Difference or even direct state investment – to support these new nuclear projectsstibbe.comstibbe.com. This marks a revolutionary shift in Dutch policy, which previously insisted on 100% private financing for any new nuclear (a stance that had effectively stalled nuclear development)stibbe.comstibbe.com. While these Dutch reactors won’t be online until the early 2030s at best, the strategic change is significant. It reflects lessons learned: renewables are vital but not sufficient on their own, and excluding high-capacity low-carbon sources ultimately hampers decarbonization. If the new plans proceed, the Netherlands of 2040 may more closely resemble France’s low-carbon mix, with nuclear providing firm baseload to complement the winds of the North Sea. The country’s experience thus far serves as a cautionary tale: a renewables-only policy, implemented in a real-world fossil-dependent grid, can lead to years of stagnation in emissions and a continued marriage to gas – precisely what climate policy is meant to overcome.

United States: Fragmented Markets and Political Dysfunction

The United States presents a complex, even schizophrenic, picture. Unlike France or the Netherlands, the U.S. doesn’t have a single national energy policy; it has a patchwork of state policies, regional market rules, and federal initiatives – some aligned with decarbonization, others at odds with it. In many ways, the U.S. experience encapsulates the dangers of a disjointed approach where markets are deregulated in some areas and regulated in others, and where partisan swings cause whiplash in energy strategy. Amid this fragmentation, nuclear power in America fell victim to both market forces and political missteps – and that, in turn, has made the clean energy transition harder and more costly.

Firstly, the U.S. electricity sector is roughly 60% fossil-fueled (about 42% natural gas, 18% coal in 2023)epa.gov, with the remaining 40% split between nuclear (~18-20%) and renewables (just over 20% including hydro)epa.gov. This national average hides big regional differences: some states like West Virginia or Wyoming burn coal for most of their power, whereas others like Washington or Vermont are nearly fossil-free (thanks to hydro or nuclear). This disparity means there’s no one-size narrative, but at the national level, the U.S. has seen simultaneous growth in renewables and loss of nuclear capacity in recent years. Drivers include the fracking boom (cheap gas), flat electricity demand, and the aforementioned subsidies and mandates favoring renewables. Crucially, the U.S. chose in the 1990s and 2000s to deregulate many electricity markets, breaking up traditional utilities and creating competitive wholesale markets (ISO/RTOs) where generators bid in power by price. These markets, like those in PJM (Mid-Atlantic) or ERCOT (Texas), were designed to be technology-neutral and to lower costs – but they were blind to carbon emissions. In the 2010s, as gas prices plummeted and wind/solar enjoyed tax-subsidized cost declines, these markets pushed down electricity prices. Good for consumers in the short run – but nuclear plants, which have high fixed costs and need a certain price to remain profitable, found themselves in trouble. Dozens of U.S. reactors at middle age (40+ years) became marginal or unprofitable in competitive markets despite their zero-carbon output and reliable service. And because there was no national carbon price or adequate clean energy credit for nuclear, nothing in the market signaled their value to the climate. The result: by 2020, early nuclear retirements were mounting. Iconic plants like California’s San Onofre (closed 2013) and New York’s Indian Point (closed 2021) shut down well before their licenses expired, purely for economic or political reasons. Each time, emissions took a hit. A Third Way report warned in 2015 that if U.S. reactors keep closing without replacement, emissions could revert to mid-2000s levels, wiping out a decade of gainsthirdway.org – a prediction that came true in states like New York and California until policy corrections were made.

Political dysfunction amplified these market distortions. For years, federal climate legislation stalled in Congress amid partisan gridlock. Without a price on carbon or robust national clean electricity standard, the default drivers were the PTC/ITC and state policies that largely excluded nuclear. Meanwhile, regulatory hurdles and episodic public opposition made building new nuclear plants in the U.S. painfully slow and expensive. The few attempts to construct large new reactors in the 2010s – notably the Vogtle plant in Georgia – suffered delays and cost overruns, reinforcing the narrative that nuclear is “too slow and costly.” Anti-nuclear activists pointed to these struggles as justification to double-down on renewables-only visions, but this was a self-fulfilling prophecy: years of under-investment and over-regulation of nuclear had eroded the industrial base and driven up costs, creating the very problems cited to argue against new projectsearthriseaccord.orgearthriseaccord.org. Only recently have signs of change emerged. The bipartisan infrastructure law and Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2021-2022 included not just PTCs for renewables but also unprecedented support for nuclear – production credits for existing plants to prevent further closuresearthriseaccord.org, loan guarantees for advanced reactors, and R&D for small modular reactors. The federal government finally recognized what scientists had been saying: that preserving the existing nuclear fleet is one of the lowest-cost options for avoiding increased emissionsworld-nuclear.orgworld-nuclear.org, and that building next-generation nuclear is likely essential to fully decarbonize the grid.

State-level developments echoed this realization. Perhaps the most telling example is California’s reversal on its last nuclear plant, Diablo Canyon. In 2016, California had proudly announced Diablo Canyon would shut by 2025, to be replaced by renewables and efficiency. By 2022, facing the twin realities of possible power shortages and the prospect of higher emissions from gas, Governor Gavin Newsom and state legislators reversed course – passing emergency measures to extend Diablo Canyon’s operation for at least five more yearsearthriseaccord.org. This dramatic about-face – in the heartland of anti-nuclear sentiment – underscored a pivotal shift: even some on the environmental left are begrudgingly accepting that achieving zero carbon electricity may be impossible without nuclear in the mixearthriseaccord.orgearthriseaccord.org. A Newsweek analysis in 2023 described the left’s stance on nuclear as moving toward “grudging acceptance,” and a notable piece in the historically anti-nuclear Jacobin magazine called 1970s-style anti-nuclearism “a dead end for the Left” in the era of climate emergencyearthriseaccord.org. These are remarkable statements, considering the ideological battles of the past. They highlight that facts on the ground – blackouts narrowly avoided, emissions targets missed – are compelling a re-examination of dogmas.

In sum, the U.S. is gradually, unevenly, inching toward a more technology-inclusive approach, but not before suffering the consequences of its fragmented policy. Grid instability has become a concern in some regions (e.g. Texas’s 2021 winter crisis, California’s tight summer reserves) – a warning that balancing 100% renewables is not trivial. Emissions reductions have plateaued in parts of the country where nuclear plants shut and were replaced by gas. And crucial years were lost in the 2010s when the U.S. could have been building new nuclear capacity (as China did), but instead largely sat on the sidelines. The lesson from the American case is that neither markets alone nor ideological purity will deliver an optimal outcome. Markets left to their own preferred cheap gas over climate stability; ideological greens prioritized an ideal (renewables-only) over the pragmatic need to keep every zero-carbon tool on hand. Correcting these distortions – through policies that reward any and all clean generation and directly invest in nuclear alongside renewables – is the only path forward consistent with U.S. climate pledges. Encouragingly, that correction has started, but there is a long way to go.

Conclusion: Toward an Inclusive, Evidence-Based Clean Energy Strategy

Across these examples runs a common thread: when nuclear power is excluded from clean energy plans, fossil fuels win by default. France’s experience showed that embracing nuclear alongside renewables yields a power system that is close to carbon-free, resilient, and equitable. The Netherlands and the U.S., in different ways, illustrate how leaving nuclear out of the equation tends to lock in higher emissions and reliability challenges, forcing policymakers into difficult compromises (like burning more coal in an emergency or scrambling to extend gas plant lifetimes). These are not theoretical musings – they are observable outcomes backed by data. And they validate SEA’s central message: distorted energy markets and subsidy structures, born of ideological biases, are sabotaging our decarbonization efforts.

A truly evidence-based clean energy policy does not pick winners and losers based on sentiment or outdated myths; it sets performance-based goals (like emissions reduction, reliability, and cost affordability) and supports any technology that can meet them. The climate crisis is too urgent for sectarian approaches. Wind, solar, hydro, geothermal, nuclear, energy storage, carbon capture, efficiency – we will need all of these deployed at massive scale to have any hope of reaching net-zero global emissions. As the IPCC has made clear, “a broad-based approach to deploying energy sector mitigation options” is required, including renewables, nuclear power, and other low-carbon solutionsworld-nuclear.orgworld-nuclear.org.

None of this is to say that wind and solar deployment should be slowed or stopped – far from it. The recent growth of renewables is a remarkable success story and is crucial to decarbonize large chunks of energy use. But we must abandon the false narrative that renewables alone can carry the day, or that scaling them must come at the expense of dispatchable clean power. The “100% renewables” movement, when it insists on excluding nuclear, is not a heroic vision of a green future – it is, as SEA has argued, a form of “ideological captivity”earthriseaccord.org that inadvertently serves fossil fuel interests. It is a luxury we can no longer afford. By contrast, a technology-inclusive approach – call it “100% clean energy” rather than 100% renewables – allows each zero-carbon source to do what it does best. Intermittent renewables provide cheap bulk energy when conditions allow; nuclear (and other firm sources) ensure reliability and round-the-clock power; grid upgrades and storage help smooth the gaps. In such a framework, subsidy and market mechanisms should reward low-carbon performance and reliability rather than arbitrarily favoring one class of technology. Production credits or contracts for difference can be offered to any generator that delivers clean power, whether it’s a wind farm or a nuclear plant, leveling the playing field. Capacity markets and grid services should value the reliability contributions of resources that can be dispatched as needed – again, whether battery, hydro, or nuclear – so that the system isn’t biased toward plants that can disappear when the weather shifts.

Correcting today’s skewed incentives is not just a technocratic tweak; it is pivotal to preventing grid destabilization, emissions backsliding, and further entrenchment of gas and coal interests. As we’ve seen, countries that prematurely eliminated nuclear options have often ended up prolonging coal and gas use – the very opposite of climate leadership. Conversely, those that kept a diverse portfolio have cut emissions faster and suffered fewer growing pains. Going forward, climate strategy must be synonymous with open-mindedness. Dogmas from the 20th century – whether the anti-nuclear orthodoxy of certain environmental circles or the anti-regulation mantra of certain market fundamentalists – need to give way to a problem-solving mindset. The problem is slashing emissions to zero while powering modern societies; the solution is whatever mix of tools achieves that as swiftly and securely as possible.

Stichting Earthrise Accord’s critique may be sharp, but it is grounded in these realities. We do not argue for nuclear power out of academic interest or industry allegiance; we argue for it because the empirical evidence shows that excluding it has failed and including it has succeeded. We argue for it because every ton of carbon matters, every tenth of a degree of warming matters, and every community spared the fumes of a gas peaker plant matters. This is not about re-litigating past debates – it’s about facing the future with clear eyes and the full arsenal of solutions at hand.

The path to an abundant, just, and sustainable energy future is not paved with ideological purity or one-true-way thinking. It is built through pluralism and pragmatism, learning from each other’s successes and failures. France’s low-carbon grid, the Netherlands’ policy course-correction, America’s evolving consensus – each offers lessons on what to do and what not to do. The time for tribal energy wars is over; the time for “all of the above, except fossil fuels” is here. As the old saying goes, we don’t have a silver bullet for climate change – we need silver buckshot. By embracing technology-inclusive policies, restructuring markets to value carbon-free reliability, and refusing to be swayed by fossil-fueled misinformation, we can avoid the renewables-only trap and truly start phasing out fossil fuels rather than unintentionally propping them up. Our climate goals, and indeed the welfare of future generations, depend on making this crucial course correction.

Sources:

1. Deloitte – The Turning Point: A Global Summary (2022) – Economic risks of climate inactionearthriseaccord.org.

2. Harvard School of Public Health (Burnett et al., 2021) – Mortality from fossil fuel air pollution (~8 million deaths/year)earthriseaccord.org.

3. World Health Organization – Climate change and health estimates (2014)earthriseaccord.org.

4. Earthrise Accord (Eric Anders, 2023) – The Biggest Fossil Fuel Lie: How Anti-Nuclear Misinformation Doomed the Climateearthriseaccord.orgearthriseaccord.orgearthriseaccord.orgearthriseaccord.org.

5. Earthrise Accord (Eric Anders, 2023) – Abundance or Austerity: Nuclear Energy, Political Dysfunction, and the U.S. Climate Crossroadsearthriseaccord.orgearthriseaccord.org.

6. Third Way (J. Jenkins & F. de Sisternes, 2016) – When Nuclear Ends – Modeling of U.S. emissions if nuclear plants retirethirdway.orgthirdway.orgthirdway.org.

7. Reuters – Netherlands lifts cap on coal power to counter gas crisis (June 20, 2022)reuters.com.

8. Statista – Carbon intensity of power sector: Netherlands 2023 (268.5 gCO₂/kWh)statista.com.

9. EnergyNews Pro – France reaches 95% low-carbon electricity in 2024 (Jan 21, 2025)energynews.proenergynews.pro.

10. Earthjustice – Gas plant pollution and environmental justice (2024)earthjustice.org.

11. World Nuclear Association – Response to IPCC AR6 Working Group III (2022)world-nuclear.orgworld-nuclear.org.

12. Stibbe (Netherlands law firm) – The future of nuclear energy in the Netherlands (2022)stibbe.comstibbe.com.