The ambitious goal would require current nuclear capacity to more than triple, but the feat is achievable, according to a 'Nuclear Energy Technology Roadmap' published jointly by the IEA and the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
The document argues that nuclear power is a mature technology and expansion in the short term will not require major technological breakthroughs.
Instead, the main challenges relate to financing the construction of new nuclear plants and putting in place policies and measures to encourage nuclear investment, as well as considering government support like loan guarantees, the roadmap argues.
The US, for instance, has set up a loan guarantee programme, which could provide over $50 billion in guarantees to restart the country's nuclear industry.
An expanding industry will also need beefed-up training programmes to deliver skilled human resources and investment in industrial capacity to build and operate nuclear plants, it adds.
The IEA states, however, that development of reactor and fuel-cycle technologies will have to continue if nuclear power is to compete with other low-carbon technologies.
"Nuclear energy is one of the key low-carbon energy technologies that can contribute, alongside energy efficiency, renewable energies and carbon capture and storage, to the decarbonisation of electricity supply by 2050," said IEA Executive Director Nobuo Tanaka.
Increased international obligations to cut greenhouse gas emissions have led many countries to restart their nuclear programmes, which were slashed or downscaled after the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986.
Meeting tough targets with renewable energy alone is a tough task in the short term as many of the renewable technologies are still expensive and require further technological development to be employed on the required scale.
Environmentalists, however, argue that nuclear power should not be considered sustainable, pointing out that the safety concerns and issues with nuclear waste storage are yet to be solved.
