Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
The top six nuclear power producers
Number of reactors operating
Megawatts
United States
104
101,119
France
59
63,473
Japan
53
46,236
Russia
31
21,743
Germany
17
20,339
South Korea
20
17,716
World
436
372,900
Source: World Nuclear Association
A second chance?
Although new coal plants provoke direct protest action and peak oil
always causes a bit of intellectual friction, no energy issue has stirred
more emotion and controversy than nuclear power over the years. This is
hardly surprising, because there are strong arguments, strongly held, for
and against it.
We have lived with nuclear electricity for more than fifty years now.
Some 440 reactors in 30 countries generate about 15 percent of the
world's power, although in a few, mostly richer, countries the proportion
of nuclear generation is higher. In France the nuclear share in electricity
generation is 80 percent, and France, the US and Japan account for 57
percent of world nuclear generating capacity. After the 1970s oil-price
shocks, France and Japan launched major reactor-building programmes
for reasons of energy security, well before scientists began to worry about
climate change.
According to the World Nuclear Association, there were, in 2009, some
380 new reactors planned or proposed around the world. Although the
rate of reactor building has slowed in recent years, nuclear power still
makes a powerful contribution to low-carbon energy generation, because
of its scale. Nuclear power generates one third of the European Union's
electricity, and accounts for two thirds of its CO 2 -free electricity. The
Nuclear Energy Agency, an offshoot of the OECD, has estimated that if
nuclear power replaced coal, it could be “saving” between four and twelve
 
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