NICE Future Initiative Featured Publications

Publications either directly published by the NICE Future initiative or of high interest to the initiative’s audience are featured here. Subscribe to receive email announcements of such publications—as well as announcements of our coming webinars.

A Journal for the Clean Energy Community: RISE3D
The RISE3D case study demonstrates how advanced and innovative nuclear energy technologies, such as small modular reactors, will support the clean energy transition in a variety of community contexts. This volume includes submissions from Kenya, Antartica, Francee, and more. Read the second volume: A Journal for the Clean Energy Community: RISE3D.

A First Wave Case Series: RISE3D
The RISE3D case study demonstrates how advanced and innovative nuclear energy technologies, such as small modular reactors, will support the clean energy transition in a variety of community contexts. This volume includes submissions from Puerto Rico, the United Arab Emirates, Romania, Japan, and more.

Climate Solution Fact Sheet: 4 Solutions to Achieve Net Zero by 2050
Achieving net zero emissions will be difficult even if we use all the zero-carbon energy technologies currently available. The challenge is not only to build enough clean electricity generation to power the world without associated environmental emissions, but to do so quickly while also building the infrastructure required to decarbonize end-use sectors such as heat, industry, and transport. This fact sheet details four potential solutions that can help de-risk and accelerate the path to a net zero future.

Climate Solution Fact Sheet: Energy Systems Modeling 2.0
To achieve net zero emissions, creative solutions that combine renewable energy sources and innovative nuclear solutions will be needed. This Climate Solution Fact Sheet proposes a way of modeling the clean energy transition that includes all carbon-free alternatives—renewables and nuclear energy. 

Towards a Clean and Just Energy Transition
As countries transition to clean energy, they will need to take steps to ensure that clean energy technologies boost economies and improve the quality of life for all. This report highlights environmental justice issues and key communication points in the transition towards a clean energy future, with a focus on the role of nuclear energy and emissions-free heat sources (such as fission) in the transition from coal.

Repowering 2TW of Phased Out Coal by 2050 with Clean Nuclear Energy
Globally, coal represents a large share of emissions from the power sector. This brief details the opportunities associated with transitioning unabated coal-fired power stations to nuclear energy.

Repurposing Coal Plants—An Innovative Way for Local Communities to Thrive
In evaluating unabated coal plants for transitions to nuclear energy, countries will need to consider the impacts on local communities and economies. This fact sheet details the economic opportunities and just transition considerations associated with transitioning coal communities to nuclear power.

Nuclear Energy-Providing Power, Building Economies
Historically, nuclear power plants have provided many benefits to the local communities in which they are located, including providing reliable employment, increasing local tax revenues, and decreasing consumer vulnerability to electricity price volatility. Combined, these benefits create a positive impact from nuclear energy on local and national economies. Learn more about how nuclear energy can power economies.

Nuclear-Hydrogen Digest: The Role of Nuclear Energy in the Hydrogen Economy
NICE Future, with the support of the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency, has published the Nuclear-Hydrogen Digest: The Role of Nuclear Energy in the Hydrogen Economy. It showcases, from multiple stakeholders around the globe, examples of leading nuclear produced hydrogen initiatives which can be used to power hard-to-electrify sectors such as transport and heavy industry. Nuclear-hydrogen is no longer a vision, but an actionable way to support the hydrogen economy.

Fostering the International Adoption of Nuclear Energy
An American Nuclear Society article outlines how the NICE Future initiative helps countries explore how nuclear technologies can support economic growth, energy security, and energy access while enabling the expansion of renewable energy.

Nuclear's Role in Clean Energy: Fact Sheet Series
The NICE Future initiative developed a set of fact sheets that provide high-level information on the potential role of nuclear energy in current and future clean energy systems, providing information on the overarching benefits of nuclear energy, the scale of technologies available, and opportunities to provide clean energy for the grid, industry, and transportation.

Actions to Enable Flexible Nuclear Energy
In April 2021, the NICE Future initiative convened a virtual workshop with over 50 experts from a dozen countries to discuss and identify barriers to the deployment of flexible nuclear energy. The results of this workshop and key actions that can enable flexible nuclear energy are summarized in this publication.

Pathways to Net Zero Using Nuclear Innovation
This publication is intended to help policymakers and the Clean Energy Ministerial understand the paths that different participant countries are taking to reach their clean energy goals with the help of nuclear innovation. It also includes the perspectives of various international organizations that highlight where nuclear energy’s contributions to emission reductions could grow further.

Flexible Nuclear Energy for Clean Energy Systems
Flexible Nuclear Energy for Clean Energy Systems provides a collection of technical analyses that, in the aggregate, demonstrate the current and potential future roles for nuclear energy in providing power system flexibility to meet energy demands. While the data and analysis presented may reveal differences between sections due to the individual authors' perspective or focus, collectively they seek to explore the value of flexible nuclear energy.

Breakthroughs: Nuclear Innovation in a Clean Energy System
Breakthroughs: Nuclear innovation for clean energy systems tells how nuclear innovation is an enabler of clean energy systems globally. This book is intended as a starting point for examining how nuclear energy can complement broader clean energy systems and is focused on innovation happening today in the global nuclear industry. The stories in the book reveal what may be surprising or unexpected contributions—contributions that reimagine the role of nuclear energy in clean energy systems of the future. And the people, approaches and solutions in the book provide answers to some of the tough questions facing nuclear energy development.

From Our Partners

Lucid Catalyst: Missing Link to Livable Climate - How Hydrogen-Enabled Synthetic Fuels Can Help Deliver the Paris Goals
Analysts focused on the potential for clean hydrogen to accelerate decarbonization. This report is an urgent call to address and act upon the gaps in the literature, where advanced heat technologies are either drastically under-represented, or entirely omitted, from the range of clean production.

Nuclear Energy Agency: The Costs of Decarbonization
The Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) is an intergovernmental agency that facilitates cooperation among countries with advanced nuclear technology infrastructures. In addition to their work in nuclear technology, they also work with the economics of nuclear energy. In their report, The costs of decarbonization, the NEA examines some of the scenarios that have been proposed to drastically reduce emissions of energy systems globally. These scenarios include large amounts of renewable technologies, hydropower and nuclear energy. The report finds that a cost-effective low-emissions system would likely include large capacities of both traditional renewable energy sources and dispatchable nuclear energy. Some of the nuclear technology identified is still under development, and the report seeks to help countries make informed decisions about key technologies for their clean energy futures.