It will keep one of the most important resources due to the need of electricity for various cultivation processes. Developing of countries and various sectors of our lives especially industrial sector requires stable source of energy.

The problem is the scale of the risk and associated dangers and harm, added to the very long lasting disastrous effects. Fukushima is not far away. 

Nuclear power is a proven source of reliable, cost-effective and clean power with significant public benefits. In 2015 and 2016, 20 new nuclear power plants started supplying electricity. Around 10 GWe of new nuclear capacity was added to the grid in each year. This is a higher amount than seen over the preceding 25 years. Nuclear generation has increased every year for the last four years.

According to some expert opinion, the projection for 2035 is between 482 GWe and 625 GWe.

Nuclear industry had set a goal to supply 25% of the world's electricity by 2050, which will mean the construction of 1000 GWe of new nuclear capacity. This expansion of nuclear capacity is achievable but requires new nuclear build at rates the industry achieved in the 1980s. To achieve this goal, an action is required in three key areas to enable nuclear generation to grow at a faster rate. This will require reform of energy markets, regulation and our perception of safety to make it possible.

In many countries, electricity markets are failing to deliver the energy choices needed. We need a level playing field in energy markets that utilize existing low-carbon energy resources already in place and drives investment in additional clean energy resources. A key component of this is that nuclear energy must be included along with all other low-carbon technologies. As the only zero-emission generating the resource that can be scaled to meet actual demand, nuclear power must also receive recognition and compensation for its contribution to system reliability and for other public benefits.

We need an effective safety paradigm focusing on genuine public wellbeing, where the health, environmental and safety benefits of nuclear are valued when compared with other energy sources. And we need harmonized regulatory processes to provide a more internationally consistent, efficient and predictable nuclear licensing regime allowing for standardized solutions, to facilitate a significant growth of nuclear capacity, without compromising safety and security.

Without these changes, the world will not be able to take full advantage of the contribution that nuclear energy should make to address the energy transition to a low-carbon economy. If action is taken in these three key areas, it would enable nuclear build rates to ramp up to 35 GWe a year. This would allow the target of 1000 GWe of new nuclear capacity by 2050 to be met.

This is a challenging but achievable target. It would only require annual nuclear new build rates to increase by three to four times current levels, much lower than the scale of expansion needed for other low-carbon generation options. However, the main challenges are not in production, but in securing policy support.

It will continue with slow pace particularly in developing countries/poor countries.

We must distinguish what is the meaning of nuclear energy. Is it only to generate electricity, or to desalinate seawater for drinking, farming, making radioactive materials for cancer treatment, medical tests and dozens of peaceful applications.

All are rapidly under developing in reality, but the media and the insignificant money paid to the workers in the nuclear companies for nuclear safety is frightening, especially in the underdeveloping countries, so the most important risk is the political human errors, but we do need nuclear energy.

Dear Jorge Morales 

Thank you for your answer you started with

"Nuclear power is a proven source of reliable, cost-effective and clean power with significant public benefits". 

I might agree with that in theory,  do you think this is also the opinion in Fukushima and Chernobyl ??  In other words, are there any durable effects of those disasters on the development of this source of energy and its industry?   

It is necessary to switch from uranium fission reactors to hydrogen isotope fusion reactors.This can be realized only on the basis of alternative nuclear fusion methods. My ball lightning creates muons at entrance in a dense medium. The muon-catalyzed fusion is promising in the collision of two ball lightning in a medium of dense gas mixture of deuterium with tritium. Only I do not have financial support for my experiments.

It has a great future in developing countries where there is huge demand of electricity. Nuclear energy is pollution free, no dams, no jungle cutting, clean and green

Dear Jorge Morales

With a nuclear plant, the price of electricity is low, and you may have a massive rebound effect for all your consumption because you still need ‘fossils’, the substitution effect is bounded.

This is due to a ‘permanent income effect’ that makes you feel more rich, and your ‘fossil-CO2 loaded’ consumption will rise… you will loose the benefits of the substitution of ‘fossil’ plants by nuclear plants, simply because of the lower the price of electricity, the more you consume.

For ex. you’ll be allowed to trip more if your electricity bill is lowered, thanks to the nuclear plant, and you will not make less CO2 (you may produce more CO2 in fact). 

So ‘climate change’ is just an opportunity to sell more nuclear plants, that are (and will be) parts of the problem. 

If the French nuclear safety regulator had requested temporary shutdown four reactors it means that the French nuclear safety regulator had the basis. If there are any big risks, then they need to be eliminated. Elimination of risks doesn't mean elimination of field of nuclear power. See: http://www.french-nuclear-safety.fr/Information/News-releases/ASN-imposes-temporary-shutdown-of-the-Tricastin-nuclear-power-plant

Except fusion of hydrogen, nuclear fission  is the most effective energy source, 10^7 times more effective than any chemical reaction (like burning fossil fuel). Into nuclear power presently only China and India are heavily investing to cope with the increase in energy use per capita. To stay within the 2 degree C until the end of the century (which I believe will be very hard and maybe impossible) we have to stay below 1000 Gton CO2 emission. Present yearly rate  is more than 30 Gton. We have already consumed more than 40% of the total (1000Gton). Hence drastic and I mean really drastic reduction needs to be strived for the next decade to cope with this 2 deg limit. Most of the fossil fuel reserves on Earth (about 13000 Gton CO2 equivalent) need to stay where they are. This will be the major challenge of humanity in the coming decades.

When we worked with safety of Space missions (my formed experience): there were clear criteria. The probability of death of a crew member. For example for Lunar base: over 3%. But. In social life: simply there are NO similar explicit scientific (and rational at all)-based criteria. Nuclear energy: there are risks. But also it, for example, increase economical independence, and support of own military. How can we ignore it. In political practice: Let look at the book of ex-referent of Nixon and Reagan, Patrick Buchanan (https://www.amazon.ca/Death-West-Populations-Immigrant-Civilization/dp/0312302592/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1507210521&sr=8-1&keywords=death+of+the+west). According Buchanan: all modern civilization (include Russia, South Korea, Singapore: not only western Europe) ALREADY died. Simply biologically. And key factor: it was not the nuclear energy. It was a contraception. Yeas, other politicians continue to discuss "risks". And will continue. But there are only rituals. Without any rational sense. If we believe Buchanan: there are already no risks. Everybody already died. In France too. French people having zero chances to survive, in a future. Independently of nuclear energy. What exactly politicians mean, telling about "risks"? Risks for whom? For Islamic terrorists? For extraterrestrials?

Dear Franz-Josef Hambsch

I know that 1 gram of uranium = 3 tons of coil, so an average nuclear plant = x fossil plants (x = ?); this is the good side : the substitution of fossil plants by nuclear plants. 

The evil side is that : "nuclear fission  is the most effective energy source, 10^7 times more effective than any chemical reaction (like burning fossil fuel)" (as you write).

It means that you will ‘plug’ a lot of things (products, commodities) that are carbon loaded ; and if the energy is cheap, a 'permanent income effect' will also rise consumption.

I think that a nuclear plant is binary : it provides a lot or nothing (is it right ?).

The flaw is that you may think that the demand preexists and the supply just follows ; but a (French ?) nuclear plant only knows the Say’s law : supply creates the demand ; Say’s sugar for capital (Say was French... You may also look at Marx's famous 1857 introduction : better than Say !). 

A big supply means a big demand, consumption plugged-connected on/to the plant or income effects without plugging ; all those things are carbon loaded ; 'nuclear plant = x fossil plants’ is an empirical way of thinking.

So if you aim is to solve the climate warming problem, you must consider the rebound effect seriously and/or control the demand ; but if the plant asks a high level of consumption to work, what will you do ? 

If you want to save the industry: you can move it all into space. Technically possible. Can neutralize all money of investors. And zero environmental risks. There are even some trends in this direction, in the US and Luxembourg, for some reason. Huge military meaning (for example: to change the trajectory of an asteroid, directly to Paris.) Problem: this is only a proposal. That we have a free market. It can only be ideology. In fact, we can live in medieval China or in ancient Egypt. Where new technical ideas: are illegal. In reality, everything can now be hyper-monopolized and super-centralized. And no free market.

Historically, nuclear power plants in France: it was de Gaulle's idea. To be politically and militarily independent. What if now France does not plan to be independent.

The question was about civil nuclear energy, political and strategic considerations were truly not in mind. 

Nuclear power will play an important role in the energy mix in the future. Security of supply and decarbonization are the main tasks to be fulfilled with the support of nuclear power. I predict a good correlation between the renewable sources (wind and solar) and nuclear power sources. Nuclear safety should remain thh first priority of nuclear power plant! The actual nuclear power technology should be in place for the next decades.. Future nuclear power reactors (Gen IV) should be used after demonstrating theier performances, but only after 2040..

https://phys.org/news/2016-11-future-nuclear-energy.html

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170622-how-will-we-manage-nuclear-energy-in-the-21st-century

http://web.mit.edu/nuclearpower/pdf/nuclearpower-summary.pdf