Nuclear decline set to continue, says report  

Nuclear Engineering International has an interesting report on the current prospects for the nuclear power industry - Nuclear decline set to continue, says report.

Nuclear will continue to decline according to a new report. At this point there is no obvious sign that the international nuclear industry could turn the decline into a promising future, it says.

"The World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2009" by independent consultant, Mycle Schneider, professor for energy policy Steve Thomas, consultant Antony Froggatt and Doug Koplow, was released on 27 August. Commissioned by the antinuclear German federal ministry of environment, nature conservation and reactor safety, it gives facts on the nuclear power plants in operation, under construction and in planning phases throughout the world. It also assesses the economic performance of past and current nuclear projects including Calvert Cliffs, Flamanville and Olkiluoto.

The report says that there seems to be a “widening gap” between the industrial reality with its current trends and the "perception of some sort of nuclear renaissance”.

In 2007 nuclear power plants generated about 2600TWh and provided 14% of the world's electricity, a 2% fall compared with 2006.

As of 1 August 2009 there were 435 (370GW) nuclear reactors operating in the world and 52 units listed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as “under construction”. At the peak in 2002 there were 444 operating nuclear reactors.

“With extremely long lead times of 10 years and more, it will be practically impossible to maintain, let alone increase the number of operating nuclear power plants over the next 20 years,” the report says. (The one exception to this outcome would be if operating lifetimes could be substantially increased beyond 40 years on average; there is currently no basis for such an assumption.)