Despite decades of relentless anti-nuclear propaganda which paralysed the use of nuclear energy and stifled its expansion, harsh realities arising from the wars in Ukraine and Iran, as well as the inherent limitations of wind and solar energy, particularly their inability to provide reliable baseload power, have accelerated the expansion of nuclear power around the world.
In a sense, nuclear energy has been a victim of its original use to end World War II in the Pacific, with the bombing of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki bringing about the Japanese surrender in August 1945.
In the minds of many, nuclear energy is inextricably linked with the military applications of nuclear fuel, which does not apply to other energy sources such as coal, petroleum and renewables.
However, from the 1940s onwards, nuclear scientists and engineers believed that nuclear energy had the potential to deliver almost unlimited quantities of affordable, reliable electricity. Many developed countries, including the United States, UK, France, Russia, Japan and China, have long developed nuclear power stations that have comprised a significant share of these countries' energy mix.
In France, for example, nuclear energy provides about two-thirds of the country's electricity. Other European countries with high nuclear electricity production share include Slovakia, with 60 per cent of its electricity from nuclear, Hungary, with 47 per cent, and Finland, at over 39 per cent.
The world's largest user of nuclear power is the United States, which had 94 reactors in operation in 2024, followed by China with 57.
According to the Our World in Data website, coal remains the world's largest single source of electrical power, generating about 34 per cent, followed by natural gas (22 per cent), hydroelectricity (14 per cent), and nuclear (9 per cent), followed by wind power (8 per cent) and solar (7 per cent).
However, recent events in the Middle East have reinforced the need to shift to nuclear power.
Separately, the Trump Administration has accelerated the expansion of nuclear power in the United States, as part of President Donald Trump's plan to reindustrialise the nation and end the United States' dependence on imported energy.
The US Government has committed several billion dollars to breathe new life into the American nuclear sector through eight Presidential Executive Orders, putting the nation on the path to a nuclear energy renaissance.
These involve large-scale investment in advanced reactor development, bold efforts to remove regulatory barriers to new power stations, deployment of next-generation small modular nuclear reactors, new life for retired nuclear plants, including the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania and the Palisades plant in Michigan, and major strides in securing America's nuclear fuel supply chain.
In Japan, which closed all its nuclear reactors after the Fukushima nuclear power station was seriously damaged by an earthquake and subsequent tsunami in 2011, the country is now poised to bring all reactors back online and rapidly expand its nuclear power industry.
Japan's critical dependence on imported sources of energy - natural gas from Russia, and oil and gas from the Middle East - have decisively focused public opinion on the need for energy independence.
Crucially, the Japanese Government has learned the lessons of Fukushima and has established a nuclear regulatory authority which is independent of both the nuclear power industry and the government.
Japan's first female Prime Minister, Sanae Takaichi, has set a goal to double Japan's nuclear power production by 2040.
Europe is moving in the same direction. At the recent European Nuclear Energy Summit in Paris, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen described Europe's 2011 decision to abandon nuclear energy as a "strategic mistake".
She said that, in 1990, Europe produced a third of its electricity from nuclear power. That has now fallen to an average of 15 per cent, leaving the continent "completely dependent on expensive and volatile imports" of fossil fuels, much of which came from Russia and the Middle East.
Europe is therefore facing soaring energy prices and reduced supply. To meet the challenge, the European Commission has committed [euro]330 million ($A538 million) to expand nuclear energy production across Europe.
The British Labour Government, long a supporter of alternatives to oil and gas, has also confirmed its strong support for the expansion of the nuclear power industry.
Rolls-Royce, a leading British manufacturer of luxury cars and jet engines, is also the manufacturer of nuclear power plants to all British nuclear submarines. It has been working for years on small modular reactors (SMRs) for civilian use and is about to commission its first SMR.
Faced with the soaring cost of fossil fuels, there has been a complete switch in sentiment by both governments and people in favour of nuclear energy for electricity generation.