Rethinking energy infrastructure security in the climate transition: governance-dependent vulnerability in nuclear fission and fusion systems

Abstract

As the climate transition increases reliance on low-carbon but high-consequence energy infrastructures, nuclear fission and emerging fusion systems are becoming more central to energy security, technological competition, and international governance. Existing research on nuclear safety, critical infrastructure protection, regime complexity, and anticipatory governance does not fully explain why technologically protected infrastructures may become strategically vulnerable when the surrounding governance architecture loses coherence. This article develops the concept of governance-dependent infrastructure vulnerability, defined as a security condition in which legal authority, operational control, regulatory oversight, institutional legitimacy, and crisis-response capacity are separated, contested, or insufficiently developed. It employs a qualitative concept-building design combining structured, focused comparison and process-tracing elements across two theoretically selected domains: the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant during the Russia–Ukraine war and the emerging regulation of nuclear fusion in major jurisdictions. The ZNPP illustrates governance breakdown, in which military occupation and contested sovereignty decoupled authority, control, and oversight. Fusion governance illustrates a prospective pathway of governance incompleteness as regulatory institutions develop alongside technological demonstration and prospective commercialization. The article argues that governance-dependent vulnerability arises when misalignment among the functions required for risk coordination makes the catastrophic-risk potential of high-consequence infrastructure strategically consequential. The framework contributes to international security and global governance by specifying how technological systems, institutional arrangements, and geopolitical rivalry interact to produce strategic exposure during the climate transition.