Graduation Year

2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree

Ph.D.

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

Degree Granting Department

School of Interdisciplinary Global Studies

Major Professor

Govindan Parayil, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Steven Roach, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Peter Funke, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Michael Spencer, Ph.D.

Keywords

Baseload Power, Bilateral Agreements, Decarbonization Strategy, Energy Security, Small Modular Reactors

Abstract

In recent years, nuclear energy has remained sidelined in global climate discussions despite being the world’s second-largest source of low-carbon electricity. This dissertation examined why nuclear energy should be the global priority decarbonization strategy, based on an evaluation of its unique position across the following three dimensions: fragmented international climate governance, political polarization in democratic countries, and unprecedented baseload electricity demands created by artificial intelligence infrastructure. This study does not argue causal linkages among these dimensions; rather, it demonstrates that nuclear energy succeeds concurrently across all three. A mixed-methods approach was employed, including document analysis of bilateral agreements and official institutional reports for governance fragmentation; secondary survey data analysis and qualitative discourse analysis of party platforms and parliamentary debates, with the United States serving as the primary case study and the United Kingdom and Germany as comparative contexts for political polarization; and quantitative demand projection analysis and document analysis of corporate announcements for AI-driven electricity demand. Across each dimension, nuclear energy demonstrated distinct advantages. In fragmented governance settings lacking hierarchical enforcement, nuclear energy thrived through bilateral agreements that served state sovereignty interests while bypassing multilateral restrictions that previously excluded nuclear energy from climate finance mechanisms. Regarding political polarization, nuclear energy exhibited a relatively small partisan gap compared to renewables and fossil fuels, even in the most polarized political environments. This cross-partisan appeal was attributed to nuclear energy’s framing flexibility, allowing conservatives to frame it as energy security and progressives to frame it as a climate solution, preventing either side from claiming exclusive ideological ownership. Regarding AI-driven electricity demand, structural requirements for reliable baseload power could not be satisfied by intermittent renewables independently, whereas nuclear energy’s high-capacity factor met these operational requirements. The dissertation concluded that nuclear energy is the only low-carbon technology capable of succeeding across all three dimensions, positioning it uniquely to overcome the political and institutional barriers hindering global climate progress.

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