Climate activist, Louise Dahlerup Fazlagic speaks to Mewburn Ellis about Denmark's potential nuclear revival, highlighting new technologies and shifting public sentiment towards sustainable energy solutions.
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Denmark is a world leader in green energy. In 2024 around 88% of net electricity came from renewable sources, the highest in the EU. Half of that came from wind, twice as high as the runner up in the OECD. Two-thirds of renewable energy comes from bioenergy, either organic material or biomass. It's a formidable record.
But nuclear? That's the missing part of the energy equation in Denmark.
Since 1985 the public planning of nuclear energy in Denmark has been banned. The prohibition did not extend to research, but the nuclear reactors founded by Niels Bohr himself in the 1950s were closed down in 2003.
This may soon change. Pro-nuclear scientists, engineers, climate activists and lobbyists are promoting the benefits of a return to fission. A campaign group called Atomkraft – Ja Tak, translated as Nuclear Power – Yes Please!, is consistently winning support from the young. An older campaign group called REO has been promoting nuclear power since the 1970s.
A sign of the times is the emergence of two outstanding new reactor companies located in the Danish capital. Copenhagen Atomics, founded in 2014, is developing small modular molten salt reactors with mainly thorium as fuel. They have a rival in the city in Saltfoss Energy (formerly Seaborg), founded in the same year to work on a similar technology, using uranium fuel, mainly.
In 2025, Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen announced a major change in mindset, saying: “It is better to have nuclear power in Europe than to rely on Russian gas.”
A big reason for the shift may be the campaigning of nuclear engineer and senior patent specialist Louise Dahlerup Fazlagic. She is both an elected representative in the political IDA list of “Nuclear Power – Yes Please !” and chair of IDA Nuclear, a professional network of the Danish Society of Engineers (IDA).
Louise Dahlerup Fazlagic, Senior Patent Specialist & Chairman for IDA Nuclear
Fazlagic’s CV is formidable. With a Master of Science in Nuclear Engineering, she worked for many years as a nuclear safety inspector. She lobbies currently on behalf of the IDA list to promote nuclear power. She spent time as a patent and nuclear safety consultant, first for Copenhagen Atomics, later for Saltfoss Energy. Her day job is facilitating the patent process at the Danish Technical University.
If Fazlagic has her way, Denmark will soon be a global force in green nuclear energy, both in research and in power generation. She spoke to Mewburn Ellis to explain the path to nuclear revival.
The political scene
So where is Denmark right now on nuclear?
“There is still effectively a ban on installing nuclear power plants in Denmark,” says Fazlagic. “This ban also makes it difficult for the two Danish developers to attract major investments. The investors naturally ask, if the technology is so great, then why isn't it being promoted by or even used in Denmark? But in the last four years there's been a definite shift in sentiment in the public as well as the media and political scene.”
She points to the polls: “Support for nuclear used to lie around 25%, but now a staggering 55% is positive. And it's not just in Denmark where support for nuclear power is on the rise. There are today at least 127 development companies around the world, including the four big conventional nuclear power plant providers, all who for the last ten years have focused on developing Small Modular Reactors (SMR). In fact, Russia and China, as well as Canada are already building these, so I suggest that we in the EU and in Denmark start to focus on supporting this new technology to gain an edge in the world market.”
A potential setback for the nuclear track occurred in the March 2026 Danish elections with the formation of a left-of-centre four party coalition government. The Socialist People's Party, as well as the Radical Left, have until now been resolutely anti-nuclear. The lead party, the Social Democrats, are historically resistant, but have recently been open to debate the nuclear case. The fourth largest party, the Moderates, are also open to the idea. “Us campaigners lost a bit of our oomph with the election,” admits Fazlagic. “The situation is now a bit complex, but it just means that we are more determined than ever to make the case for nuclear power as well as for research reactors in politics. We feel heard now, given the fact that the government policy is open to change. In their words, the government may implement SMRs in the 2040s, if the technology proves to be safe, cost-effective for the state, competitive, standardised and scalable.”
The SMR revolution
A key factor in winning the debate is the emergence of cutting-edge homegrown reactor technologies. Just like the UK, US, Canada, Sweden, and a long list of other countries, SMRs are becoming a bigger part of the energy debate. But are they really so different?
“The 4th generation high temperature SMRs are a real game changer, in my opinion, in particular on the safety case, covering both easier operation, lower risk of accidents, better managed fuel cycle and waste,” says Fazlagic. “But the more conventional types of SMR using water cooling are also worth a thought, and conventional large-scale reactors should not be counted out, either, for providing green electricity or heating.”
Copenhagen Atomics has a 1 MW test reactor under development in Switzerland. Fazlagic explains the design: “Thorium is the fuel combined with uranium, and heavy water as moderator. The reactor starts with uranium to begin the reaction, surrounded by thorium to absorb neutrons. Some minutes after being exposed, the thorium turns into fissile uranium-233, which allows a controlled chain reaction to continue.”
The proposed use of thorium is, in part, due to cost and, in part, on availability. The cost of raw thorium is, according to Copenhagen Atomics, $2 per GWh of thermal energy, compared to at least $2,000 for traditional solid fuel reactors. Thorium is also easy to procure as a by-product of metal mining, and at least three times more abundant than uranium in the earth's crust. It is often found in monazite sands, which are common in India, Brazil, and Saudi Arabia. Even in Denmark, some thorium is found in sediments in Western Jutland.
Fazlagic says the advantages of SMRs include better safety, and improved fuel-to-energy use, technically known as burnup: “A large conventional water-cooled reactor, including the SMRs using the same tech, only use up to around six to ten per cent of the uranium fuel. The rest is left behind inside the spent fuel. ”Molten salt reactors, such as those by Copenhagen Atomics and Saltfoss Energy, claim to be able to burnup around 80% or more of the fuel.
A ten-fold increase in burnup is startling. How is this achieved? Fazlagic explains that the fuel, usually uranium or thorium, is dissolved in molten salt. “The salt is heated to around 500ºC at which point it becomes a liquid, and the fuel material is blended in. Another molten salt loop acts as a coolant, and the two salts – which stay liquid up to 1,400ºC - are kept around 550 ºC. These salts are also very stable, and are not reacting violently with air or metals, unlike water, steam or sodium. They are thus thermally efficient. And salt absorbs fewer neutrons than water, improving the efficiency of the reactor.”
The troublesome neutron absorbers, the so-called neutron poisons such as xenon and krypton, that are produced as by-products during operation, can be removed from the molten salt by a variety of techniques - either during operation or after, by sparging. This means bubbling an inert gas such as helium through the liquid to separate and strip out unwanted substances. In a conventional solid fuel reactor these contaminants become trapped inside the rods, which means fuel must be removed sooner in conventional reactors than in molten salt SMRs. The new approach offers a huge performance increase relative to the more traditional designs with solid fuels and water as coolant.
The safety factor
Safety is at the heart of the debate in Denmark, says Fazlagic. The nuclear ban in 1985 came after the Three Mile Island disaster, and just a year before Chernobyl. Any new reactor must convince the public, politicians, and regulators of its safety, both during operation as well as when the spent fuel is being stored or deposited as waste.
Fortunately, many novel fourth-generation SMRs work on radically different safety principles to the more traditional water-cooled reactors. Copenhagen Atomics' and Saltfoss Energy’s molten salt designs are a great example.
Fazlagic: “The uranium and thorium are suspended in the molten salt. This is different to a conventional reactor, where the aim of the water cooling is to keep the rods solid, and not allow them to get so hot that they melt, thus causing a meltdown. The molten salt SMR eliminates the conventional solid-fuel meltdown scenario, because the fuel material is already in a liquid state. The reactor chamber also operates at close to atmospheric pressure, so there is less danger of overpressure during operation than for water cooled reactors, where steam is formed. And if there is a leak, the developers highlight that the molten salt will cool down and quickly become crystallised, so even radioactive gases contained within will not leak out.”
Fazlagic says the higher burnup rate resulting from molten salt SMRs also reduces the volumes of radioactive waste generated: “This is because their waste consists mainly of fission products such as caesium-137 and strontium-90. Although these products need safe storage for 300 years as they decay to safer levels, this time frame is much more manageable than conventional water-cooled reactors that produce higher levels of transuranic waste, such as americium, which requires safe storage for thousands to hundreds of thousands of years.”
This is a huge environmental benefit. Traditional fission waste is long-lived. The Onkalo deep geological repository in Finland for conventional spent nuclear fuel is, for example, designed to last up to 100,000 years. Molten Salt SMRs should make such requirements redundant.
The versatility and compact size of SMRs is a bonus also in other areas. Fazlagic points for example to Saltfoss' compact reactor, which is so small it can be put on a barge in a harbour. This power barge can hold up to eight reactors delivering 800MW of electricity, as well as clean water from desalination, or support hydrogen fuel production, in addition to the heating. To the objection that putting a nuclear reactor on a barge might seem risky, Fazlagic explains that the fuel in the reactor is mixed into a molten salt. If this comes into contact with air or sea water it cools down and forms a solid rock, containing all the radioactive material, and as mentioned above, even gases.
Changing the narrative in Denmark
Fazlagic hopes that the strengths of the SMR designs, particularly those of Copenhagen's two reactor companies, might win over many critics.
However, the politics of nuclear in Denmark are going to be tricky to navigate.
“The left in Denmark remains anti-nuclear,” she explains. “The Social Democrats say nuclear is great for other countries, but not for us. What we'd like to see is a government prepared to support nuclear, and we will work hard to make that happen.”
To change the political winds Fazlagic as chair of IDA Nuclear helped to found a new body, the Kernekraft Alliancen, or Danish Nuclear Alliance. “This new body brings together all the important players in Denmark,” says Fazlagic. “We want to bring more factual knowledge into the debate and tackle the many myths which have persisted since the 1980s, such as the idea that nuclear waste is an unsolvable problem.”
The Alliance includes the trade union Dansk Metal, professional networks such as Fazlagic's IDA Nuclear, venture capital, the nuclear institutes at some universities, the two SMR companies, and even one of the nation's biggest oil refiners.
“Our focus is to bring science and facts into the debate,” says Fazlagic. For too long, she says, emotion and obsolete ideas have dominated. “Statistics show that many women in Denmark tend to be more anti-nuclear,” she says. “This may originate in particular from the Cold War in the 1980s, when there was intense propaganda around the chance of a nuclear war. We were told nuclear power equalled nuclear bombs, and the danger of radiation for children and genetic mutations. The psychological link is still there, despite the strong safety record of commercial Western nuclear power.”
The wind sector is important in Denmark, and politicians are mindful of the impact nuclear may have on the future prospects for new parks. “A recent paper examined the threat of nuclear to wind. It actually concluded that if nuclear delivers heat as well as electricity, then it would pose less danger to our wind industry.” The Alliance intends to spell out how much energy Denmark needs to transition to net zero. Finland, where nuclear energy provides 40% of electricity, is a template. “In Finland, even their branch of Greenpeace backs nuclear,” says Fazlagic. “They primarily back small modular reactors, including those producing heat.”
There's still a lot of work to do. Fazlagic is eager to identify and eliminate the bottlenecks which could yet trip up a nuclear revival in Denmark.
Expertise is an issue. As a non-nuclear nation, explains Fazlagic, Denmark must train the experts needed to build and run reactors. “Since 2003 there has been an exponential decrease in the number of courses offered in Danish universities,” she says. “It was then realised we would be reliant on expertise from outside Denmark. So, the Danish Technical University as well as Aarhus University set up courses two years ago. This is attracting young people, who grew up – while not being influenced by the 1980s discourse of nuclear energy being dangerous and in-controllable.”
Long-held views are another hurdle to overcome. Older engineers, says Fazlagic, can be tough to convince. “Even inside IDA, the union of engineers, there are people who oppose nuclear, and support only wind and solar,” she says. “This is a bit strange in my opinion. They are energy professionals, and should be technology neutral. We also see in politics there are those who see nuclear as something which will provide too much controllable energy, and encourage thereby the further consumption of the world's resources. But, in my opinion, we have a global population to support, and a global climate crisis that we need to respond to quickly, by adding energy-dense and resource-efficient nuclear power into the mix.”
So what drove Fazlagic to become involved in promoting nuclear power? “I have two grown-up sons, and I want the best future for them. I also got inspired when I heard Greta Thunberg plead for all experts in their fields to speak up and suggest solutions to the climate crisis. I thus felt driven and obliged to assist the green transition in Denmark by promoting nuclear energy in the green mix, using my hands-on knowledge about nuclear power in a positive manner.”
Momentum may be on her side. Sweden has now reversed course, having in 1980 voted to phase out nuclear reactors – with just six reactors left functioning. It now plans to build 2,500 MW new nuclear capacity by 2035. The government wants 10 new reactors to be ready by 2045. Vattenfall, the national energy company, selected Rolls-Royce in June 2026 to supply SMRs. Three other projects are under development, including one at Barsebäck, just across from Copenhagen. Also, 40 countries globally have now pledged to triple their nuclear power capacity by 2050.
Fazlagic makes a powerful case for Denmark's return to nuclear power, Niels Bohr’s own country. She supports fission reactors of all types, but the emergence of safe and efficient small modular reactors is well timed. The young in Denmark are supportive of a new energy mix. Turbulence in the oil and gas markets is giving the campaign a lift. If Fazlagic and her colleagues have their way, Denmark will soon re-enter the nuclear era.
Andrew Fearnside, Senior Associate and Patent Attorney at Mewburn Ellis comments:
"The development of next-generation nuclear technologies such as small modular and molten salt reactors depends not only on scientific breakthroughs, but also on the intellectual property that protects them. Strong patent positions can help innovative companies secure the long-term investment and commercial partnerships needed to take complex reactor technologies from prototype to deployment, while providing a framework for licensing and international collaboration. As countries compete to build expertise and supply chains around advanced nuclear energy, IP will therefore play an important role in determining where both the technology and its economic value ultimately reside.”
Written by Charles Orten-Jones.
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