Despite the recent fervor among tech companies and investors about nuclear energy, Ketchum held that renewables and storage will likely play a greater role in meeting new energy demand for at least two decades to come.

“Nuclear will play a role, but there are some practical limitations,” he said. “There are only a few nuclear plants that can be recommissioned in an economic way ... But even with a 100% success rate on those recommissionings, we would still only meet less than 1% of that [new] demand.”