In 1956, the United Kingdom switched on the world’s first full-scale commercial nuclear power station at Calder Hall. It was opened by Queen Elizabeth II with the promise that it would usher in an abundant new era in which energy was too cheap to meter. It seemed as though the atom might reshape the world. But what began as a great industrial ambition soon turned into a cautionary political tale. The accidents at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima hardened public opposition to nuclear power, while its associations with weapons and waste meant it was shunned by environmentalists and sidelined by policy­makers. The building of nuclear power stations slowed, even as warnings about climate change grew louder.

Now, as the world searches for credible ways to meet net-zero targets, nuclear power is quietly re-entering the conversation. Countries are revisiting past decisions, investors are returning and younger generations – less influenced than older ones by Cold War fears – are increasingly open to it. Yet if a new nuclear age is to begin in earnest, it will require more than shifting sentiment. It will need understanding too. That’s where Tim Gregory’s Going Nuclear comes in.

Written by a nuclear scientist, this is not just a plea for atomic energy. It is also a bold reframing of one of the most misunderstood technologies of the modern age. With clarity, wit and a scientist’s eye for precision, Gregory takes readers from the dawn of the atomic age to the crossroads we are at today, where the promise of abundant, carbon-free power meets decades of hesitation and cultural unease. This book stands out for its capacity to disarm. Nuclear power is here made not only comprehensible but also compelling. Gregory explains the physics of nuclear energy – neutrons, isotopes, breeder cycles and all – with clarity and without ever condescending. But it is his range that gives the book momentum.

This is not a manifesto disguised as history. Gregory acknowledges nuclear power’s difficult past. But he insists on the need for honesty in confronting the climate crisis. ‘Making a success of net zero,’ he writes, ‘requires that we distinguish between what we want to be true and what is true.’ Decarbonisation is not just a matter of political will or moral persuasion. It is also a physical challenge. It requires the provision of clean, reliable power, always available. Net zero may be possible without nuclear power, but it is far more viable – and far less costly, both economically and environmentally – with it.

This isn’t a new insight, but it bears repeating. As ‘A New Nuclear Age’, a report that I and colleagues at the Tony Blair Institute recently produced, shows, had the world not turned away from nuclear power after the Chernobyl disaster, the emission of nearly twenty-nine gigatonnes of carbon dioxide could have been avoided. That’s the equivalent of shutting down nine hundred coal plants for thirty years. Gregory does not dwell on counterfactuals, but his argument aligns with the implication: neglecting nuclear energy has been one of the costliest environmental decisions of the past half-century.

He is particularly persuasive when unpacking the myths that still shape opposition to nuclear power. Radiophobia, he argues, has often done more harm than radiation itself. The huge losses caused by the Fukushima meltdown, for instance, were due not to radiation exposure (which caused, at most, a single fatality), but to the mass evacuation that followed, which led to thousands of unnecessary deaths. Nuclear power’s safety record is one of its greatest strengths. As Gregory notes, in return for a death rate comparable to that caused by wind power and solar power, we get energy that is clean, reliable and abundant.

Gregory doesn’t let the reader off lightly. He tackles the thorniest issues – waste, cost, risk, proliferation – providing context, not platitudes. The entire world’s nuclear waste to date, he notes, would fit in a cube just over thirty metres across. While countries like Finland are pursuing long-term geological disposal, burying nuclear waste deep underground, Gregory argues for a more ambitious approach: a circular fuel cycle. By using fast reactors to reuse spent fuel and extract more energy from existing materials, nations like France have demonstrated how so-called waste can become a strategic resource.

‘Decarbonising the world using nuclear power’, Gregory writes, ‘should be the twenty-first century’s Apollo programme.’ There are no silver bullets, but he insists on realism and optimism. In an age of climate anxiety and technological pessimism, Going Nuclear offers a hopeful alternative. Here is a future of plenty, not scarcity – of development, decarbonisation and energy security proceeding hand in hand. Nuclear power is energy dense, low carbon and increasingly versatile. Small modular reactors (SMRs), factory-built and located near industrial sites, could be deployed faster and more flexibly than traditional power stations. Gregory argues persuasively that SMRs, whether powering heavy industry or producing zero-carbon heat, could become the connective tissue between emissions reduction and industrial strategy. This isn’t just a matter of theory. Countries like Canada, France, the UK, Poland and the United States are backing SMRs, while China is adding SMR capacity at pace. For nuclear power to succeed, it must be buildable. Gregory shows that it can be.

The book ends on a personal note. ‘I’m going back to the lab now,’ Gregory writes. ‘Over to you.’ For those of us not in labs but in government and policymaking, this reads like a summons. Turning renewed interest into lasting momentum will require a public narrative grounded in science, not sentiment. Going Nuclear points the way forward.