Outlook 2022: The nuclear option for Europe's energy crisis

Price spikes and potential risks to grid stability might see policymakers alighting on a previously unpalatable solution

Addressing climate change will be the defining economic theme of our generation, and probably the next. The threats to our economy, our property and our way of life from climate change have the potential to be existential, and nothing in peacetime history has involved reallocation of resources on the scale necessary to decarbonise the energy complex. To put it in perspective, a recent study from Stanford University put the cost of transitioning to renewables from fossil fuels at $73tn. In comparison, the cost of the Second World War—the last global-scale event—was just $4tn in current dollars. Coincidentally, the Second World War also marked the dawn of the nuclear age. Since that war ended,