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Sustainable development is fundamentally about improving the well-‐being of individuals in current and future generations by expanding their valuable choices and opportunities. This chapter evaluates nuclear energy as a potential engine of sustainable development from the prospective of its impact on the well-‐being of members of current and future generations of a society. The literature on nuclear energy implicitly assumes the context of a developed community. However, the moral and factual questions to consider when evaluating nuclear energy shift when the context becomes that of a developing community. We present in this chapter a theoretical framework for evaluating the promise and peril of nuclear energy for developing countries and for assessing different nuclear technologies that might be available now or in the future. The proposed framework has at its core a concern for individual capabilities. Capabilities refer to the genuine opportunities individuals are free to achieve, such as an opportunity to be educated or adequately nourished. In evaluating the role of nuclear energy in sustainable development, it is critical to consider risks nuclear energy poses; sustainable development promotes opportunities in a secure manner, and risks threaten that security. Our framework considers the costs, benefits, and risks associated with the use of nuclear energy to enhance development.

There are four sections in this paper. The first provides an overview on the general issues influencing the moral justifiability of nuclear energy. The second then discusses why these issues take a different form in developing contexts. The third outlines a …