McKinsey published its take on the nuclear sector titled "Nuclear power: A renaissance in the making." The report starts by highlighting the bull cases for nuclear, such as AI data center demand, electrification, onshoring, decarbonization goals, and energy security concerns.
The firm goes on to reiterate their projection that global nuclear capacity could at least double and potentially triple by midcentury under net-zero scenarios, reaching as high as 1,200 gigawatts.
But, that's about as far as the happy feelings go. From there, it's a review of the disturbing cost of construction for nuclear energy in the US.
This isn't the first time McKinsey has laid out the case for the incredibly wide gap that needs to be filled in terms of investments and skilled labor to support a nuclear future. Our readers should recall their recent report projecting up to $170 billion of required investments for the domestic nuclear fuel chain just to support the US commercial reactor fleet.
While that report was followed up a few weeks later by Centrus Energy and Oklo announcing an agreement for domestic uranium enrichment to supply reactors in Ohio, a solution for actually expanding fuel chain capaci
