World’s top banks back boosting nuclear energy

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Wall Street is warming up to nuclear energy as several of the world’s top banks have pledged to support growth of the low-carbon energy source.

On Monday, 14 financial institutions said they would now back the goals set during negotiations at the 28th United Nations Climate Change Conference last year to triple global nuclear energy capacity by 2050. The support came on the second day of Climate Week NYC.

The group of institutions includes Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, Ares Management, Bank of America, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Brookfield, Citi, Credit Agricole CIB, Goldman Sachs, Guggenheim Securities LLC, Morgan Stanley, Rothschild & Co., Segra Capital Management, and Societe Generale.

Bank and institution leaders joined White House climate policy adviser John Podesta at Rockefeller Center in Manhattan to pledge their support.

“Our collective mission is clear: nuclear energy is clean energy, and if we are to ensure a livable planet, build secure, sustainable supply chains for clean energy and bolster prosperity around the world, we need to make sure that nuclear energy does its part,” Podesta said in a statement. “I know we can make it happen—as long as we work together.”

The negotiations set at COP28, also known as the Declaration to Triple Nuclear Energy, have been endorsed by 25 countries including the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, Canada, and France. 

Foreign leaders have emphasized the importance of support from financial institutions, with some saying it is the last piece to the puzzle of increasing nuclear energy generation.

“The only riddle left to solve is the financial side, the financial costs,” Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob said in a statement. “Financial markets need to adapt and develop new financial instruments in order for nuclear energy to become competitive with other CO2-free energy sources.”

It was not immediately clear how the financial institutions would support these goals, but they could do so through lending, project financing, bond sales, and other means.

The increased support for nuclear power comes as other sources of renewable and low-carbon energy, such as wind and solar, have been criticized for failing to be reliable in the long term and being expensive.

At the same time, there are growing concerns regarding strain on the national grid as large data centers, often focused on artificial intelligence, have caused a massive hike in electricity demand. The Electric Power Research Institute estimates that by 2030, data centers could consume upwards of 9% of electricity generation — over double the amount currently used. To relieve pressure on the grid and increase its reliability, some tech companies are pushing to co-locate data centers next to nuclear plants.

On Friday, Constellation Energy announced its plans to reopen the Three Mile Island nuclear plant, the site of the worst nuclear accident in the nation’s history, and sell its energy to Microsoft. Amazon also recently entered an agreement with Talen Energy to purchase the decades-old Susquehanna nuclear plant in Pennsylvania.

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BNP told the Financial Times that if the world wants to hit carbon neutrality by 2050, it cannot do so without utilizing nuclear energy. James Schaefer, the senior managing director of Guggenheim Securities, also pointed to nuclear energy as a key solution amid rising electricity demand.

“New nuclear power is both clean and safe, and more importantly proven, with a number of nations now operating highly advanced and ‘commercially viable’ third- and fourth-generation fission technologies,” Schaefer said in a statement Monday. “It is essential that we accelerate the progression of planned projects into plants on the ground given the huge demand coming down the line for data centers and AI technologies.”

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