Only an economic issue ?

Implications: The diversification of sources in energy production is not  a matter only correlated to the level of oil price. The current level of oil price certainly stimulate differentiation but security of supply is another driving force.

Analysis: The development of energy sources (from carbon to oil, natural gas, nuclear energy, renewable energy) continuously evolves according to economic conditions, social developments, technical capabilities and environmental impacts. They compete, cohesist and overcome each other all the time. Historically what we can say is that as soon as one of these sources reach a 5% market penetration it does not go back: this is the current situation of the nuclear energy which is and will continue to be an important source of energy.

The high level of oil price certainly is today one of the driver of a reconsideration of nuclear energy in some country (e.g. Italy) but not  the only one. If we look at oil and natural gas those are provided by country with high political risks and a serious strategy for further developing economies in short supply of energy has to have to consider nuclear energy as a serious alternative.

The current production of world nuclear energy represents 16% of the world total energy production. For the OECD countries this is 25% and for the EU it is 35%. Worldwide there are 28 new reactors under construction, further 38 are planned and 115 proposed. This means that towards the middle of this century there will be 500 GW of nuclear energy available that are still short of the 800 GW estimated by the World Energy Council necessary to cut emissions , by 2050.