Sixteen months after the nuclear disaster in Japan, electricity generation from nuclear power worldwide has reached record levels, with a reactor construction boom likely to push those levels steadily higher.
“Fukushima has delayed nuclear development by three or four years,” as countries re-evaluate safety around nuclear power, says Luis Echávarri, the director general of the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA). “But construction continues.”
In the immediate aftermath of the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami that led to meltdowns at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, the total global operating capacity for nuclear-generated power dipped from about 372 gigawatts of electricity (GWe) — equivalent to about 14 per cent of the world’s electricity — to roughly 304 GWe, largely due to Japan and Germany switching off their nuclear plants.
However, a year after the meltdown, the amount of electricity generated from nuclear plants worldwide had risen again and is at an all time high, according to Echávarri.
The World Nuclear Association estimates that at least 73 GWe in net new capacity will be added by 2020.
The same can be said for nuclear plant construction. According to the NEA, a branch of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, there are more nuclear reactors under construction now than before the Fukushima meltdown and hundreds more are planned to go into operation in the years to come.
Japan itself shut down all 50 of its active reactors for inspection after the Fukushima meltdowns, but is embracing nuclear power again.
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