The National Interest

Topic: Debates Blog Brand: Energy World Region: Americas Tags: Energy Can We Classify Nuclear Energy As Green? August 20, 2025 By: Seth Grae, and Mark Z. Jacobson Share

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The debate is between those who view nuclear energy as green and those who argue that nuclear energy is far from clean.

The Roman playwright Phaedrus remarked, “Things are not always what they seem; the first appearance deceives many; the intelligence of a few perceives what has been carefully hidden.” In the realm of energy, it seems that nowhere is this truer than in the field of nuclear energy. Often hailed as the solution to the climate crisis, proponents of nuclear energy claim that it should be able to rightfully join the ranks of green sources of energy, including solar, wind, hydro, and geothermal power.

Nuclear energy’s critics, especially those who remember the disasters at Chernobyl and Fukushima, beg to differ and point out all the ways that nuclear energy is only tangentially related to its fellow green energy brothers and sisters and should rightfully be placed alongside oil, gas, and other forms of carbon. After all, nuclear waste is a nightmare to clean up, whereas solar, wind, and water power produce no waste at all. While nuclear energy carries with it the dangers of nuclear proliferation by rogue states and non-state actors, no such risk exists for green energy. After all, nobody is going to try to destroy the world with a solar panel.

But is this true? Does nuclear energy really deserve the moniker of “green” energy?

For the Pro Side of This Debate, Go Here!

The pro side argues that nuclear energy is the greenest technology. For one, the author points to the fact that nuclear fuel is extremely energy dense — more so than oil or natural gas — and, as a result, produces much less waste than you would think. In addition, due to the fact that the ability to recycle nuclear waste has greatly improved since the 1970s, the risks of nuclear waste are much less than one would think. Another plus for nuclear energy is that it has a much smaller land footprint than other sources of green energy or even conventional energy, requiring much less space to produce more energy. With these two benefits driving nuclear energy’s rising popularity both in the United States and around the world, it’s no wonder that nuclear energy has been selected as the energy source of the near future.

For the Con Side of This Debate, Go Here.

The critics disagree, saying that nuclear energy is far from “green.” For instance, what the pro side fails to include in their article is that the uranium has to be pulled from the ground by someone, and this process is far from clean — for either the miners, their communities, or the environment. In a way, this is similar to the problems surrounding rare earth mining on land and in the ocean. In addition, building a new nuclear reactor in the United States (or in many developing countries) is hardly like switching on a kitchen light. Instead, it is a long and complicated process that requires the movement of a good deal of land development, and this imposes its own costs. And finally, and perhaps most critically of all, there’s always the risk of a nuclear meltdown or nuclear proliferation by malicious state or non-state actors.

Image: Shutterstock/Yuri Hoyda

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