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Nuclear, Not Optional: Inside India’s Bold Energy Endgame 2025

Nuclear, Not Optional: Inside India’s Energy Endgame 2025 - PNN

New Delhi [India], December 19: Energy drives development. Always has. India’s nuclear energy target is a blunt acknowledgement of that truth, not a political flourish.

Human progress has never been subtle about its appetite for energy. In 1971, Earl Cook laid it out plainly in Scientific American. As societies evolve, their energy consumption climbs. Food alone sustains primitive life. Add homes, trade, farming, transport, industry, then technology. Each stage piles on demand.

Today, the digital economy adds another layer. Data centres, networks, automation, AI. None of it runs on good intentions. It runs on electrons.

This is where India stands. Ambitious. Growing. Energy-hungry.

Development, measured honestly

The Human Development Index is not perfect, but it is useful. It blends income, education, and health into a single number. Countries above an HDI of 0.9 are the global heavyweights of human development. As a G-20 member, India already sits at the table with them. The gap is not aspiration. It is infrastructure.

There is a clear correlation between HDI and per capita Final Energy Consumption. Push one up, the other follows. Based on this relationship, India would need to generate roughly 24,000 terawatt-hours of energy annually to cross an HDI of 0.9, even after accounting for better efficiency and electrification.

That number is not a typo.

Roughly 60% of this energy would be used as electricity. The rest would go into producing hydrogen through electrolysers. Hydrogen matters because steel, fertilisers, and plastics cannot decarbonise on slogans alone. They need cleaner feedstocks. If alternative hydrogen production methods scale up, electricity demand may ease slightly. But not dramatically.

For perspective, India generated about 1,950 TWh in 2023–24. Recent growth in electricity generation has hovered around a CAGR of 4.8%. Maintain that pace, and 24,000 TWh becomes achievable in four to five decades.

Sounds manageable. It isn’t that simple.

The decarbonisation problem

India cannot grow energy supply the old way. Fossil fuels dominate the current mix. That has to change. Growth in generation must run parallel to electrification of end uses and a redesign of the energy mix itself.

Today, electricity accounts for about 22% of India’s final energy consumption. That share has to rise sharply. Transport, cooking, industry, everything moves toward electrons. And those electrons must increasingly come from non-carbon sources.

Hydro, solar, wind, nuclear. That is the shortlist.

Here’s the uncomfortable part. India’s hydro and wind potential is limited. Geography and population density impose real constraints. Solar faces land challenges at scale. Panels need space. India has people. Lots of them.

Yes, every viable megawatt of hydro, solar, and wind should be exploited. No argument there. But even taken together, they cannot deliver the energy volume required for an HDI north of 0.9. Not reliably. Not affordably.

That leaves nuclear.

Baseload still matters

Solar and wind suffer from a basic flaw. They are intermittent. The sun sets. The wind dies down. Storage can smooth daily fluctuations, but seasonal storage is brutally expensive.

If electricity becomes too costly, development stalls. Consumers revolt. Industry relocates.

A decarbonised grid still needs baseload generation. Power that does not care about monsoons or midnight. Nuclear plants deliver exactly that. Quietly. Continuously.

This is not ideology. It is grid physics.

Until nuclear capacity scales up meaningfully, India will have to keep leaning on fossil fuels. There is no clean shortcut.

India’s quiet nuclear competence

This is where India’s story diverges from lazy assumptions. Nuclear power here is not a foreign crutch. It is largely indigenous.

The Department of Atomic Energy and Indian industry have spent decades building a domestic supply chain. Fuel fabrication. Heavy water production. Reactor equipment. All done at home. Uranium remains the main import, simply because domestic reserves are limited.

India’s Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors are a proven platform. The Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited has mastered their design and operation, scaling up to 700 MW units. Three are already operating. A fourth is nearing completion. Two more are deep into construction.

In 2017, the government approved ten additional 700 MW PHWRs. They are moving forward, steadily, without drama.

Oversight is not an afterthought. A dedicated regulatory body has existed since the 1980s. Safety, security, safeguards. The boring but essential stuff. Bhabha Atomic Research Centre has also developed reprocessing technologies to recover valuable materials from spent fuel and manage nuclear waste responsibly.

The result is straightforward. Nuclear power in India is technically feasible, affordable at scale, and demonstrably safe.

The SHANTI Bill moment

Confidence breeds ambition. Parliament has now passed the Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India Bill, 2025. SHANTI, by name and by intent.

The legislation consolidates provisions from the Atomic Energy Act of 1962 and the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act of 2010. It clarifies regulatory continuity by deeming the existing Atomic Energy Regulatory Board as constituted under the new Act. It also places the primary responsibility for safety, security, and safeguards squarely on the licensee. No ambiguity. No buck-passing.

Most importantly, the government has set a target of 100 GW of installed nuclear capacity by mid-century. That is not incrementalism. That is a statement.

Is it ambitious? Absolutely. Is it reckless? No.

India does not become a developed country by hedging its bets. It does so by setting hard targets and backing them with policy, regulation, and engineering muscle.

If you want clean growth, reliable electricity, and a serious shot at high human development, nuclear is not optional. It is foundational.

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