European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz have admitted what many had long suspected: the retreat from nuclear power was a strategic mistake. For Europe, this belated confession carries a particularly bitter taste. For years the continent shuttered reactors, bet on cheap Russian gas, rushed the transition to renewables, and convinced itself that the new industrial age could somehow manage without the atom.

That confidence has now collided violently with reality. War, broken supply chains, sky-high electricity prices, the collapse of Europe's Russia-centered gas model, and the explosive growth of the tech economy have exposed the fatal weakness in Europe's energy model. Artificial intelligence, data centers, robotics, and electrified industry all demand more and more reliable, always-on power. They do not run on air or green fairy tales.

While Europe was busy arguing with its own shadow after Fukushima, other countries moved in the opposite direction. China is building reactors at industrial speed. Russia exports nuclear power plants as turnkey geopolitical infrastructure. The United States is rediscovering the atom through AI, data centers, and national security. India and Turkey see nuclear power as part of their own industrial rise.

The question is no longer whether a nuclear renaissance will begin. It has already started. The real question is whether Europe can still rejoin the race after deliberately dismantling so much of its own atomic infrastructure.

The Cost of Abandoning the Atom

Despite the obvious energy shortage threatening any technological leap, and despite its own admission of past mistakes, Chancellor Friedrich Merz has made one thing clear: Berlin has no intention of returning to nuclear power. At least not yet.

Germany, until recently the locomotive of the European economy and a model of industrial discipline, is now sinking into a structural crisis. It is losing the technological race to both China and the United States. Every month German manufacturing loses around 15,000 jobs. In 2025 the profits of its auto giants collapsed: Porsche by nearly 98 percent, Mercedes-Benz by 49 percent, while Volkswagen announced plans to cut 50,000 jobs in Germany alone. China has turned from a key customer into a lethal competitor, while the American market is closing behind tariff walls.

According to EY, German industry has lost almost 250,000 jobs since 2019.

As IPS Journal observes, the average age of Germany's 30 largest companies stands at 129 years. In the United States it is 53 years; in China, just 34. Behind these numbers lies a simple truth: the German economy still rests on aging industrial champions rather than a new generation of technological giants. The country retains its engineering culture, factories, vocational schools, supplier networks, and precision manufacturing. What it lacks is its own Big Tech: no Apple, no Microsoft, no Nvidia, no Google, no Amazon, no Tencent, no BYD of the next generation.

To keep the economy breathing, the country is increasingly looking at idle factories as potential sites for the defense industry. This is not a return to greatness. It is an attempt to occupy whatever niche remains after the old model began to crumble.

The bitterest paradox of all: by abandoning nuclear power, Germany began burning more coal. The result: an additional 230 million tons of CO2, 5,800 premature deaths, 55,900 severe illnesses, and 3.29 million minor illnesses linked to air pollution, according to a 2025 study on the consequences of the Atomausstieg.

PwC estimates that if the nuclear plants had stayed online, average electricity prices in 2024 would have been 23 percent lower, and the share of carbon-free generation would have reached 94 percent instead of today's 61 percent.

Stripped of cheap and stable baseload power, Germany still clings to its developed infrastructure, skilled workforce, and culture of precision engineering. But this is no longer strength. It is momentum. And momentum is running out.

China: Builder of the New Atomic Age

China has turned nuclear energy into a core pillar of national strategy. Today the country has 58 reactors in operation and another 33 under construction. In terms of installed capacity from operating units, it has already caught up with the United States, roughly 61 GW. With projects under construction and already approved, the pipeline reaches 125 GW. The target for 2030 is to reach 110 GW of operating capacity alone.

For China, nuclear power serves two strategic fronts: powering data centers and the explosive growth of AI, and the total electrification of the economy. Stations are built in batches, and decisions are made at lightning speed. Chinese authorities expect data centers serving AI needs to triple their current level of energy consumption. Here, nuclear is the stable, powerful, and genuinely carbon-free source that delivers 24/7 computational advantage.

But China is not simply stamping out fission reactors. It is methodically moving toward mastery of fusion energy. If it succeeds, Beijing could be the first to push fusion toward compact, cheaper power plants. In effect, it would create the first "artificial sun."

The main technical barrier on this path cracked open in 2026. Previously, plasma could not be compressed too strongly: the so-called Greenwald limit would kick in, and the reaction would collapse. This limitation forced designers to plan gigantic fusion reactors, rendering them commercially unviable. In January 2026, Chinese scientists published a breakthrough in Science Advances: at the EAST facility they managed, for the first time, to stably exceed this limit by a factor of 1.3 to 1.65 while keeping the plasma stable. The door to compact fusion has swung open.

The West will find it extremely difficult to catch up with China, both in speed of deployment and depth of localization. Clean energy has already become an export weapon. China now has 2.4 times more clean energy capacity than the entire EU and is expanding it five times faster.

Just ten years ago, China was completely dependent on foreign reactor technologies. Today it has full sovereignty: from its own Hualong One designs to thorium and fast reactors, as well as fuel production. It has even built the world's first land-based small modular reactor, Linglong One, which is preparing for commercial operation.

Today European industry pays 2.4 times more for electricity than its competitors in China or the United States. This price gap is already driving energy-intensive production out of Europe, chemicals, steel, fertilizers, accelerating deindustrialization.

China is also skillfully entering regions that were once considered Russia's traditional sphere of influence, offering slightly softer terms of dependence. When Kazakhstan was choosing a contractor, Rosatom leaned on its authority, but China came in with a stronger offer: cheaper, faster, and with more localization. In the end, China secured contracts for the second and third units, even though the first is being built by the Russians.

China is not merely building reactors. It is turning energy into a geopolitical instrument, where the price per kilowatt-hour and the speed of construction will decide who sets the standards for AI and the industry of tomorrow. While Germany and parts of the EU argue over whether nuclear counts as "green" or wrestle with waste, Beijing is investing 200 billion yuan, around $27 billion, in a single wave of construction and mass-producing specialists. Catching up would require playing the same game: systemic state investment, radical regulatory simplification, and a commitment to building reactors in series rather than as one-off experiments.

Rosatom: The Export Machine of Nuclear Dependence

Rosatom is not merely a corporation. It is a vertically integrated instrument of state power that even the harshest sanctions have failed to stop. According to Rosatom's own data, by early 2026 its foreign order portfolio had reached $206 billion. Right now, according to Reuters reporting from February 2026, the state corporation is building 33 power units in countries ranging from Turkey to Bangladesh.

The resilience of this machine was tested in Turkey. When Siemens, under sanctions pressure, refused to supply key components, Rosatom replaced them within months with deliveries from Russia and China. The project slowed but did not stop, confirming the status of a sovereign technological empire.

Yet the reactor is only the tip of the iceberg. Rosatom enters countries not as a contractor, but as banker and owner. In Turkey it operates the BOO model, Build-Own-Operate: the plant is built with Russian money, managed by Russia, and Russia itself sells the electricity. In Egypt a similar logic of debt and technological dependence is being implemented. The customer country does not receive energy independence. It receives a long-term lease on dependence.

The classic example is Hungary. For the Paks II nuclear power plant, Budapest received a loan of up to 10 billion euros from Russia. When sanctions against Russian financial channels created problems with payments, the necessary exemptions were granted for a civilian nuclear project, and construction resumed. Then the main rent mechanism kicks in: fuel from the Russian vendor must be loaded every one and a half to three years, while service contracts are tied to the loan and last for decades. The agreement for Egypt's El Dabaa plant, for example, locks in fuel dependence for 60 years.

What sets Rosatom apart from its conventional Korean or American competitors is one more layer: the export of consciousness. In Russia and partner countries there are 27 information centers for atomic energy. Officially they provide education. In practice they function as lobbying hubs that shape positive public opinion. Young people and engineers are brought to Russia en masse for training and forums such as World Atomic Week, creating a future technical elite loyal to Russian standards. Nuclear projects flourish where debate and protest are restricted: in autocracies or countries with a deficit of democracy. Long timelines and the need for quiet perfectly align with the logic of power in Hungary, Turkey, Egypt, and Kazakhstan.

The paradox for Berlin is lethal. While Germany was agonizing over the morality of plutonium, Moscow built an atomic East India Company, complete with a credit noose, a fuel needle, and a talent pipeline. In this system the reactor is not simply a source of electricity. It is a geopolitical device.

Europe: Fortress, Fracture, and Pressure

Berlin is still agonizing, while the rest of Europe is reassembling its nuclear landscape. And the chief architect here is France.

With 56 reactors and 70 percent of its electricity coming from nuclear power, France holds the status of Europe's "energy fortress." In March 2026 Paris adopted its new energy strategy, PPE3: no closures, six new EPR2 reactors, and a target of 380 to 420 TWh by 2035. The paradox is that France has forgotten how to build. Flamanville 3 came online 13 years late, with a budget that ballooned from 3.3 billion euros to 23.7 billion euros. Now EDF is sending its engineers to China for training, to learn what France itself taught the Chinese 40 years ago.

Around France a nuclear bloc of 15 EU member states has formed. It includes Sweden, which is building new capacity on a state-financing model; the Netherlands, with four new reactors planned, including small modular ones; and Belgium, which repealed its phase-out law and is extending the life of its remaining reactors to 2045. Italy, which closed all its nuclear plants 40 years ago after a referendum, is now considering a return.

A separate drama is unfolding in Spain. Madrid has seven reactors covering roughly 20 percent of consumption. The Socialist-led government still clings to its plan to close them by 2035. But reality broke that logic. The blackout of April 28, 2025 showed that an energy system with more than 50 percent renewables cannot handle sharp fluctuations. The energy crisis sent wholesale prices soaring sevenfold. The country's own energy companies, Iberdrola, Endesa, and Naturgy, filed requests to extend operations at least until 2030. Westinghouse, the American company that supplies fuel for five reactors, called the refusal to keep nuclear a "strategic mistake" and predicts that Spain will ultimately begin building new stations.

In May 2026 the European Parliament adopted a recommendation: suspend the closure of the Almaraz nuclear power plant, extend its operation at least until 2040, and reconsider the entire policy of abandoning nuclear. Ursula von der Leyen sent a letter to Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez with a direct demand "to avoid the premature decommissioning of nuclear assets."

Germany Stands Alone

Germany is isolated. The atomic age has returned, not only through China, the United States, and Russia, but right on its doorstep. Paris is becoming the energy center of the continent. Eastern Europe is building its first new stations. Brussels is pressuring Spain to remain in the nuclear club. Berlin tried to exit the atomic age, and the ring has snapped shut around it.