The Financial Times has examined the growing interest in extending the lives of nuclear plants around the world to meet increasing demands for energy in the article "Nuclear Energy's New Lease of Life." It says:

Most of the world’s oper­at­ing nuc­lear power plants, around 400, were built in the 1970s to 1990s and are now com­ing to the end of their pro­jec­ted lives or ori­ginal licence peri­ods.

Yet the power they provide is urgently needed. The Inter­na­tional Energy Agency estim­ates demand for elec­tri­city could more than double by 2050. Along­side this, the need to fuel the power-hungry data centres owned by tech­no­logy com­pan­ies is cre­at­ing an imme­di­ate pull in many regions.

France is the largest pro­du­cer of nuc­lear power in the EU, but Pres­id­ent Emmanuel Mac­ron ini­tially com­mit­ted to scal­ing back its role in the coun­try’s energy mix, fol­low­ing his elec­tion in 2017. However the surge in European gas prices fol­low­ing Rus­sia’s full-scale inva­sion of Ukraine promp­ted a change of heart.

In 2022, Mac­ron pledged to build up to 14 new react­ors — 25 gigawatts of new capa­city — by 2050, but the pro­cess has lagged.

But Tokyo is now bank­ing on nuc­lear energy to meet the rising demand for power. Since Fukushima, 14 plants have been reopened. Reg­u­lat­ors have also given eight react­ors the green light to oper­ate for a total of 60 years — 20 years longer than the ori­ginal lim­its — and will exclude time spent off­line.

Else­where in Europe, Ger­many’s elec­tion win­ner Friedrich Merz and his Chris­tian Demo­crats have been highly crit­ical of Olaf Scholz’s gov­ern­ment for push­ing through with a Merkel-era prom­ise to end nuc­lear power even in the midst of an energy crisis.