The execution gap in nuclear: designing bankable projects at scale

A new chapter is unfolding for nuclear energy. From fusion breakthroughs to the commercial deployment of SMRs, the global race to decarbonize is putting nuclear technologies back at the center of energy conversations. However, this renaissance is not driven solely by engineering excellence. What’s emerging is a new imperative: to turn promising technologies into executable, investible, and scalable projects—by aligning engineering, delivery models, industrial readiness, and commercialization from the start.

In recent years, the nuclear sector has garnered renewed attention due to mounting concerns about energy security, rising demand for clean, baseload power, and geopolitical tensions that underscore the need for energy independence. Governments have responded with ambitious policies, including the EU’s scale-up strategy for startups in nuclear innovation, and the US’s continued commitment to advanced reactor deployment. Industrial associations are calling for systemic support, talent pipelines, and investment incentives. And yet, many projects stall.

Nuclear’s bottleneck is no longer innovation. It’s integration and execution.

While technological challenges remain—ranging from fuel qualification to licensing pathways and subsystem optimization—they are no longer the main constraint on nuclear deployment. The barriers holding back progress are increasingly predictable execution challenges seen across projects and regions:

• Strong core technology, but no bankable commercial model
  
• Ambitious public support, but fragile supply chains
  
• Committed stakeholders, but no delivery model or governance
  
• Funding secured, but no clarity on revenue generation or market entry

These are not engineering shortcomings. They’re integration challenges — the result of treating nuclear as a technical asset or an innovation challenge, when it must now function as a deployable product and investible solution.

Why integration—not innovation—is the bottleneck to bankable nuclear projects

Engineering excellence isn’t enough? The nuclear sector’s historic focus on technical consulting—licensing, design, safety case, and engineering feasibility—remains critical. But it’s no longer sufficient. Next-generation technologies like SMRs and AMRs must not only prove themselves technically but also commercially, industrially, and politically. In the race to deploy at scale, engineering delays are often not due to physics, but to fragmented policy frameworks, mismatched supply chains, unclear value propositions, and a lack of investor confidence.

While technical hurdles remain, the more persistent constraints are often integration-related—rooted in how projects are aligned across financing, stakeholder engagement, and execution. Engineering delays today are more likely to stem from fragmented permitting pathways, immature supply chains, unclear value propositions, or weak investor narratives than from core design issues. The underlying technical innovation may be sound, but if the commercialization model is vague, the supply chain unprepared, or the delivery team fragmented, execution falters.

To move forward, reactor developers must align multiple, interdependent dimensions—each a building block of the broader operating model:

– Market positioning and go-to-market strategy, to define where, when, and how the product will enter and scale

– Commercial and financial model clarity, to enable capital formation and align risks with long-term value creation

– Delivery and governance structure, to coordinate public-private roles, regulatory engagement, and execution accountability

– Supply chain and industrial readiness, to ensure that what’s designed can be sourced, built, and qualified reliably

– Organizational and cross-functional depth, to integrate technical, commercial, and stakeholder capabilities under one operating rhythm

Few programs address all of these in parallel. Yet this is precisely what is required to treat nuclear not just as a technology, but as a scalable solution with real-world constraints—a product that must be viable not only in concept, but in execution.

Without this integrated approach, even well-funded programs struggle. Commercial models remain theoretical. Local permitting processes stretch. Early partnerships fall apart under execution pressure. In many cases, promising reactors are stuck not because the technology is unready, but because the ecosystem around them is misaligned.

Integrated product design for deployment-ready, bankable nuclear projects

Delivering nuclear today means more than proving the reactor works—it requires designing the full product system around it. That includes how it’s financed, how it’s built, who operates it, and how value flows to investors and communities.

Deployment-readiness now demands an integrated product design approach—where commercialization strategy, industrial ramp-up, policy alignment, and delivery execution are shaped as a single system, not as disconnected workstreams. These are not “adjacent” to engineering; they are essential design dimensions in themselves.

Projects must be engineered for more than technical performance—they must be engineered for deployment. That means embedding clarity around the business model, the operating model, and the regulatory context from day one. Success increasingly depends on how well these threads are woven together into a delivery model that is both credible and investable.

This shift is already underway.

A growing number of countries are investing in scale-up strategies that combine technical innovation with ecosystem thinking. In the UK, the Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre is calling for a fusion of skills, strategy, and innovation to revive industrial productivity and support the deployment of new reactors. Meanwhile, countries such as Poland, Romania, and Canada are moving quickly to align their local industries with SMR supply chain development—often supported by advisory teams that understand both policy dynamics and commercial execution.

Beyond national initiatives, reactor vendors themselves are rethinking how to accelerate deployment. Some are building strategic partnerships with robust, well-established supply chains, expanding procurement possibilities and exploring synergies with industries such as shipping and aerospace. One example is Thorcon, which pursues a shipyard build approach, constructing reactors using the capabilities of existing shipbuilding industries before transporting them to deployment sites. This model reduces construction risk, leverages proven industrial expertise, and demonstrates how nuclear projects can benefit from integration with adjacent sectors.

Talent, brand and perception: building the nuclear workforce pipeline

Workforce readiness is emerging as a critical enabler of nuclear deployment. Yet, attracting the next generation of talent is one of nuclear’s most urgent strategic challenges.

While research from Urenco shows two-thirds of young people would consider a career in nuclear, the sector must still overcome perception gaps.

For digital-native, climate-conscious generations, nuclear must present itself not just as a career in engineering, but as a mission-driven field shaping the future of clean energy, innovation, and industrial transformation.
Even well-intentioned efforts face systemic barriers—outdated messaging, limited collaboration between academia and industry, and unclear early-career trajectories. Without investment in talent strategy, brand relevance, and educational engagement, the workforce pipeline risks becoming a bottleneck to growth.

Signs of momentum are emerging. Influential advocates like Grace Stake, Miss America 2023 and now a nuclear engineer, or Isabelle Boemeke, a model turned nuclear power influencer, are helping shift perception. 

NGOs like Voices of Nuclear are expanding public understanding and building grassroots support. But much more is needed: industrial scale-up will require not just capital and policy, but people—trained, inspired, and ready to lead.

From reactor design to product delivery model: executing at scale

Bankable execution links standardized designs with governance, stage-gated finance, qualified suppliers, and offtake—managed as one delivery system. Meeting the ambition to triple nuclear capacity by 2050 requires more than innovation and  technical validation—it demands integrated execution. The sector must move beyond validating reactor designs to building full deployment systems around them, and transition towards integrated thinking—where design, delivery, and market positioning are treated as part of the same system.

Best-in-class projects are no longer built around siloed workstreams. They are developed as coherent product delivery models: integrating technical configuration with commercial structuring, industrial ramp-up with stakeholder strategy, and licensing pathways with long-term ownership and operating models.

What defines credibility today isn’t just the reactor’s readiness—but the readiness of the entire system around it: the partners who will build it, the policy that will enable it, the market that will buy it, and the financing that will carry it forward.

Teams must be built to integrate commercial thinking, policy fluency, and delivery acumen from day one. Successful programs increasingly design stakeholder alignment, siting strategy, industrial cost curves, and capital structure into their development models—long before construction begins.

The future of nuclear will be shaped by how well we design systems—not just reactors. Success will come from those who treat deployment as a multi-dimensional, integrated endeavor—and who are prepared to build accordingly.

We are entering a decade where the success of nuclear energy will be determined not only by how well we design reactors, but by how well we design systems: systems that create value to communities, resilience for grids, and clarity for investors. Delivering at scale now requires integrating technical design, commercial structure, and execution strategy into a coherent product delivery model. This is what will shape the next era of deployment.