Paris, Budapest, September 2019

© A Mycle Schneider Consulting Project

This report contains a very large amount of factual and numerical data. While we do our utmost to verify and double-check, nobody is perfect. The authors are always grateful for corrections and suggested improvements.

And everybody involved is grateful to the MacArthur Foundation, Natural Resources Defense Council, Heinrich Böll Foundation France, the Greens-EFA Group in the European Parliament, Elektrizitätswerke Schönau, Foundation Zukunftserbe and the Swiss Renewable Energy Foundation for their generous support.

The authors wish to thank in particular Rebecca Harms, Matthew McKinzie, Tanja Gaudian, Rainer Griesshammer, Andrea Droste, Jutta Paulus and Nils Epprecht for their enthusiastic and lasting support of this project.

This work has greatly benefitted from additional proofreading by Amory B. Lovins, Walt Patterson and Allan Jones, partial proof-reading, editing suggestions or comments by Ada Amon, Jan Haverkamp, Iryna Holovko, Daul Jang, Benedek Javor, KANG Junjie, Lutz Mez, Andras Perger, Steve Thomas and others. Thank you all.

We owe the idea, design, original painting and realization of the artwork for the cover to Friedhelm Meinass, renowned German painter. True, he already did (LP) covers before, in the 1970s, for The Byrds, Mahalia Jackson, Nina Hagen and the likes. Thanks so much for this exceptional contribution.

Artist and graphic designer Agnès Stienne created the redesigned layout in 2017 and continues to improve our graphic illustrations that get a lot of praise around the world. Thank you. Nina Schneider put her excellent proof-reading and production skills to work again. Thank you.

Many other people have contributed pieces of work to make this project possible and to bring it to the current standard. In particular Shaun Burnie, whose multiple contributions have been invaluable and highly appreciated. Thank you also to Caroline Peachey, Nuclear Engineering International, for providing the load factor figures quoted throughout the report.

WNISR2019 has greatly profited from a new contributor with a familiar name, Amory B. Lovins. We are very grateful for his excellent contribution. A particular thank you to Diana Ürge-Vorsatz for her generous and to-the-point Foreword.

The WNISR project can solidly count on the regular, reliable, professional and insightful contributions from M.V. Ramana, Tadahiro Katsuta, Christian von Hirschhausen and Ben Wealer. Many thanks to all of you.

At the core of the World Nuclear Industry Status Report (WNISR) is its database, designed and maintained by data manager and information engineer Julie Hazemann, who also develops most of the roughs for the graphical illustrations. She expanded her contribution significantly this year with the organization of the draft report and multi-level proofing. As ever, no WNISR without her. Thanks so much.

As for so many years now, the project coordinator wishes to thank Antony Froggatt for his conceptual input, his contributions on many levels and his friendship.

Lead Authors’ Contact Information

Mycle Schneider

45, Allée des deux cèdres

91210 Draveil (Paris)

France

Ph: +33-1-69 83 23 79

mycle@WorldNuclearReport.org

Antony Froggatt

53a Neville Road

London N16 8SW

United Kingdom

Ph: +44-79 68 80 52 99

antony@froggatt.net

Foreword

By Diana Ürge-Vorsatz

There is no doubt that climate change is with us. Record temperatures around the globe, higher frequency of droughts, severe fires, storms and flooding are becoming evident even to the starkest of skeptics. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), that I have the honor to serve on as Vice-Chair of Working Group III, made it clear in a Special Report “Global Warming of 1.5°C” that urgent action is needed, as

challenges from delayed actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions include the risk of cost escalation, lock-in in carbon-emitting infrastructure, stranded assets, and reduced flexibility in future response options in the medium to long term.

Therefore, time is of the essence. While climate scientists have been aware of the notion of urgency for many years, the notion of “Climate Emergency” has only hit public awareness and decision-makers’ attention recently.

The energy sector is the largest cause of global greenhouse gas emissions. The pertinence of mitigation strategy options needs to be judged, among others, according to three key criteria: feasibility, cost and speed.

The aforementioned IPCC Special Report notes that scenarios achieving the 1.5°C target “generally meet energy service demand with lower energy use, including through enhanced energy efficiency and show faster electrification of energy end use compared to 2°C”. There is no doubt that the key to successfully addressing the climate crises lies in more efficient buildings, mobility and industry, as well as a dramatic transformation in the way we use our land. The IPCC also notes that “in electricity generation, shares of nuclear and fossil fuels with carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) are modelled to increase in most 1.5°C pathways”, and several scenarios that reach this temperature target rely heavily on nuclear power. Similarly to other options relied heavily on by 1.5°C pathways, these scenarios raise the question whether the nuclear industry will actually be able to deliver the magnitude of new power that is required in these scenarios in a cost-effective and timely manner. This report is perhaps the most relevant publication to answer this pertinent question.

The World Nuclear Industry Status Report (WNISR) focuses on the commercial power sector. It assesses in great detail the industry’s past and present performance, following a multi-criteria analysis that looks at planning, licensing, siting issues, construction, operation, age, lifetime extensions and decommissioning. Its international reputation is beyond doubt. Already in 2011, an official USAID publication called the WNISR “the authoritative report on the status of nuclear power plants worldwide”; the Founding Director of the Forum for the Future and former Head of the UK Sustainable Development Commission stated that “the WNISR is the single most important reference document in this space”; the World Scientific’s upcoming Encyclopedia of Climate Change will carry a paper on the WNISR. The former Vice-Chairman of the Japan Atomic Energy Commission recommended: “All concerned parties, including nuclear industry organizations as well as government institutions, should read the WNISR to understand the real issues the nuclear industry is facing.”

The WNISR2019 paints a picture of an international nuclear industry with substantial challenges. Remarkably, over the past two years, the largest historic nuclear builder Westinghouse and its French counterpart AREVA went bankrupt. Trend indicators in the report suggest that the nuclear industry may have reached its historic maxima: nuclear power generation peaked in 2006, the number of reactors in operation in 2002, the share of nuclear power in the electricity mix in 1996, the number of reactors under construction in 1979, construction starts in 1976. As of mid-2019, there is one unit less in operation than in 1989.

The WNISR provides the most detailed annual account of the status and outlook of the nuclear power industry based on empirical analysis of its 65-year history. If it is difficult to forecast the future, it is all the more important to understand the past and present in order to be able to design realistic, feasible, affordable strategies for the coming decades. For example, according to the WNISR, the building rate would have to roughly triple over the coming decade in order to maintain the status quo. However, after less than a decade of China-driven modest growth, building is on the decline again as the number of units under construction dropped from 68 in 2013 to 46 as of mid-2019.

The IPCC Special Report notes:

The political, economic, social and technical feasibility of solar energy, wind energy and electricity storage technologies has improved dramatically over the past few years, while that of nuclear energy and carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) in the electricity sector have not shown similar improvements.

The WNISR2019 echoes these findings. In 2018, ten nuclear countries generated more power with renewable than with fission energy. In spite of its ambitious nuclear program, China produced more power from wind alone than from nuclear plants. In India, in the fiscal year to March 2019, not only wind, but for the first time solar out-generated nuclear, and new solar is now competitive with existing coal plants in the market. In the European Union, renewables accounted for 95 percent of all new electricity generating capacity added in the past year.

The WNISR is full of pieces of information that put data into perspective. The 2019-Edition also contains a new focus on Climate Change and Nuclear Power that reflects in depth about the capacity of the nuclear industry to deliver the magnitude of new power and capacity modeled in several ambitious climate scenarios—whether with new or existing plants—in a cost-effective and timely manner.

The WNISR is an excellent resource as it provides insights into the choices facing policymakers and its historic perspective is invaluable to the energy sector where investment and management decisions have decade-long effects. I would therefore recommend that decision makers and investors all read this report prior to making their decisions.

Key Insights

China Still Dominates Developments, But…

In 2018, nuclear power generation in the world increased by 2.4% of which 1.8% due to a 19% increase in China. Global nuclear power generation excluding China increased by 0.6% for the first time after decreasing three years in a row, but without making up for the decline since 2014.

Nine reactors started up in 2018 of which seven were in China and two in Russia.

Four units started up in the first half of 2019, of which two were in China.

The number of units under construction globally declined for the sixth year in a row, from 68 reactors at the end of 2013 to 46 by mid-2019, of which 10 are in China.

But…

Still no construction start of any commercial reactor in China since December 2016.

China will by far miss its Five-Year-Plan 2020 nuclear targets of 58 GW installed and 30 GW under construction.

China spent a record US$146 billion on renewables in 2017—more than half of the world’s total—and saw a decline to US$91 billion in 2018, but still close to twice the U.S., the second largest investor with US$48.5 billion.

No More Reactor Restarts in Japan and Global Construction Delays

The nuclear share of global electricity generation has continued its slow decline from a historic peak of about 17.5 percent in 1996 to 10.15 percent in 2018.

Japan had restarted nine reactors by mid-2018 and none since.

As of mid-2019, 28 reactors—including 24 in Japan—are in Long-Term Outage (LTO).

At least 27 of the 46 units under construction are behind schedule, mostly by several years; 11 have reported increased delays and 3 have had documented delays for the first time over the past year.

delays and 3 have had documented delays for the first time over the past year. Only nine of the 17 units scheduled for startup in 2018 were actually connected to the grid.

Renewables Continue to Thrive

A record 165 GW of renewables were added to the world’s power grids in 2018, up from 157 GW added the previous year. The nuclear operating capacity increased by 9 GW to reach 370 GW (excluding 25 GW in LTO), a new historic maximum, slightly exceeding the previous peak of 368 GW in 2006.

to reach 370 GW (excluding 25 GW in LTO), a new historic maximum, slightly exceeding the previous peak of 368 GW in 2006. Globally, wind power output grew by 29% in 2018, solar by 13%, nuclear by 2.4%. Compared to a decade ago, non-hydro renewables generate over 1,900 TWh more power, exceeding coal and natural gas, while nuclear produces less .

power, exceeding coal and natural gas, while nuclear produces . Over the past decade, levelized cost estimates for utility-scale solar dropped by 88%, wind by 69%, while nuclear increased by 23%. Renewables now come in below the cost of coal and natural gas.

Climate Change and Nuclear Power

To protect the climate, we must abate the most carbon at the least cost and in the least time, so we must pay attention to carbon, cost, and time, not to carbon alone.

Non-Nuclear Options Save More Carbon Per Dollar . In many nuclear countries, new renewables can now compete economically with existing nuclear power plants. The closure of uneconomic reactors will not directly save CO 2 emissions but can indirectly save more CO 2 than closing a coal-fired plant, if the nuclear plant’s larger saved operating costs are reinvested in efficiency or cheap modern renewables that in turn displace more fossil-fueled generation.

. In many nuclear countries, new renewables can now compete economically with nuclear power plants. The closure of uneconomic reactors will not directly save CO emissions but can indirectly save CO than closing a coal-fired plant, in efficiency or cheap modern renewables that in turn displace more fossil-fueled generation. Non-Nuclear Options Save More Carbon Per Year . While current nuclear programs are particularly slow, current renewables programs are particularly fast. New nuclear plants take 5–17 years longer to build than utility-scale solar or onshore wind power, so existing fossil-fueled plants emit far more CO 2 while awaiting substitution by the nuclear option. Stabilizing the climate is urgent, nuclear power is slow.

Executive Summary and Conclusions

As its preceding editions, the World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2019 (WNISR2019) provides a comprehensive overview of nuclear power plant data, including information on age, operation, production and construction. A new chapter on Climate Change and Nuclear Power addresses the crucial question of the performance of the nuclear option in countering the increasingly obvious climate emergency. The WNISR assesses the status of new-build programs in the 31 current nuclear countries as well as in potential newcomer countries. WNISR2019 has put particular attention on 10 Focus Countries representing about two-thirds of the global fleet. The Fukushima Status Report gives an overview of the standing of onsite and offsite issues eight years after the beginning of the catastrophe. The Decommissioning Status Report for the second time provides an overview of the current state of nuclear reactors that have been permanently closed. The Nuclear Power vs. Renewable Energy chapter offers global comparative data on investment, capacity, and generation from nuclear, wind and solar energy. Finally, as usual, Annex 1 presents a country-by-country overview of the remaining countries’ operating nuclear power plants.

Reactor Startups & Closures

Startups. At the beginning of 2018, 15 reactors were scheduled for startup during the year; seven of these made it, plus two that were expected in 2019; of these nine startups, seven were in China and two in Russia.

In mid-2018, 13 reactors were scheduled for startup in 2019, of which five had been connected to the grid as of mid-2019 (including the two started up in 2018)—and four have already been officially delayed until at least 2020. One reactor that was connected to the grid in June 2019, was listed in WNISR2018 as expected to start up only in 2020. The startups in China over the 18 months to July 2019 include the long-awaited grid connections for two Framatome-Siemens designed European Pressurized Water Reactors (EPR) and four Westinghouse AP-1000s.

Closures. Three reactors were closed in 2018, two in Russia and one in the U.S., and a further reactor was closed in the U.S. in May 2019. The Wolsong-1 reactor in South Korea also ceased operation in June 2018, which was only officially confirmed later. In July 2019, Japanese utility Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) announced the closure of the four Fukushima Daini reactors, situated 15 km from the site of Fukushima Daichi subject to disastrous accidents in 2011. WNISR had already registered all four units as closed. TEPCO announced in August 2019 that it will also decommission five of its seven units at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa, leaving the company with only two of its original fleet of 17 reactors.

Operation & Construction Data

Reactor Operation and Production. There are 31 countries operating 417 nuclear reactors—excluding Long-Term Outages (LTOs)—an increase of four units compared to mid-2018, but one less than in 1989 and 21 fewer than the 2002 peak of 438. The increase is partially due to the restart of 4 reactors previously in LTO. The total operating capacity increased over the past year by 3.4 percent to reach 370 GW, which is a new historic maximum, exceeding the previous peak of 368 GW in 2006. Annual nuclear electricity generation reached 2,563 TWh in 2018—a 2.4 percent increase over the previous year, mainly due to China—but remained 3.7 percent below the historic peak in 2006. After three years of decline, the world nuclear power generation outside China grew by 0.7 percent in 2018 but was still below the level of 2014.

WNISR classifies 28 reactors around the world as being in LTO, all considered operating by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). These include 24 reactors in Japan, and one each in Canada, China, South Korea and Taiwan. Four reactors have been restarted from LTO since mid-2018, two in India (Kakrapar-1 and -2) and one each in Argentina (Embalse) and France (Paluel-2). Three reactors, two in Japan (Genkai-2, Onagawa-1) and one in Taiwan (Chinshan-1), moved from LTO to closed.

As in previous years, in 2018, the “big five” nuclear generating countries—by rank, the United States, France, China, Russia and South Korea—generated 70 percent of all nuclear electricity in the world. As in 2017, two countries, the U.S. and France, accounted for 47.5 percent of 2018 global nuclear production.

Share in Electricity/Energy Mix. The nuclear share of the world’s gross power generation has continued its slow decline from a historic peak of 17.46 percent in 1996 to 10.15 percent in 2018. Nuclear power’s share of global commercial primary energy consumption has remained stable since 2014 at around 4.4 percent.

Reactor Age. In the absence of major new-build programs apart from China, the unit-weighted average age of the world operating nuclear reactor fleet continues to rise, and by mid-2019 reached 30.1 years, exceeding the figure of 30 years for the first time. A total of 272 reactors, two-thirds of the world fleet, have operated for 31 or more years, including 80 (19 percent) that have reached 41 years or more.

Lifetime Projections. If all currently operating reactors were closed at the end of a 40-year lifetime—with the exception of the 85 that are already operating for more than 40 years—with all units under construction scheduled to have started up, installed nuclear capacity would still decrease by 9.5 GW by 2020. In total, 14 additional reactors (compared to the end-of-2018 status) would have to be started up or restarted prior to the end of 2020 in order to maintain the status quo of operating units. In the following decade to 2030, 188 units (165.5 GW) would have to be replaced—3.2 times the number of startups achieved over the past decade. In the meantime, construction starts are on a declining trend since 2010.

Construction. Sixteen countries are currently building nuclear power plants, one more than in mid-2018, as the United Kingdom officially started building the first unit of Hinkley Point C. As of 1 July 2019, 46 reactors were under construction—4 fewer than mid-2018 and 22 fewer than in 2013—of which 10 in China. Total capacity under construction is 44.6 GW, 3.9 GW less than one year earlier.

The current average time since work started at the 46 units under construction is 6.7 years, on the rise for the past two years from an average of 6.2 years as of mid-2017. Many units are still years away from completion.

All reactors under construction in at least half of the 16 countries have experienced delays, mostly several years long. At least 27 (59 percent) of the building projects are delayed.

reactors under construction in at least half of the 16 countries have experienced delays, mostly several years long. At least 27 (59 percent) of the building projects are delayed. Of 27 reactors behind schedule, at least eleven have reported increased delays and three more have documented delays for the first time over the past year since WNISR2018.

Two reactors have been listed as “under construction” for more than 34 years, Mochovce-3 and -4 in Slovakia, and their startup has been further delayed, currently to 2020–21.

Six additional reactors have been listed as “under construction” for a decade or more: the two “swimming reactors” Akademik Lomonosov-1 and -2 in Russia, the Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) in India, the Olkiluoto-3 reactor project in Finland, Shimane-3 in Japan and the French Flamanville-3 unit. The Finnish, French and Indian projects have been further delayed over the past year while the Japanese one does not even have a provisional startup date.

The average construction time of the latest 63 units in nine countries (of which 37 in China) that started up since 2009 was 9.8 years—the first time in years to slip just below ten years—with a very large range from 4.1 to 43.5 years.

Construction Starts & New-Build Issues

Construction Starts. In 2018, construction began on 5 reactors and in the first half of 2019 on one (in Russia). This compares to 15 construction starts in 2010 and 10 in 2013. There has been no construction start of any commercial reactor in China since December 2016. Analysis shows that construction starts in the world peaked in 1976 at 44.

Construction Cancellations. Between 1970 and mid-2019, a total of 94 (12 percent or one in eight) of all construction projects were abandoned or suspended in 20 countries at various stages of advancement.

Potential Newcomer Countries - Program Delays & Cancellations

Construction Ongoing. Four newcomer countries are actually building reactors—Bangladesh, Belarus, Turkey and United Arab Emirates (UAE). The first reactor startup in UAE is at least three years behind schedule. The first unit in Belarus is at least one year delayed. At the Turkish Akkuyu site, cracks were identified in the foundation of the reactor building, leading to replacement work and likely to delays. The project in Bangladesh only started recently and it is therefore difficult to assess potential delays.

Cancellations and Delays. New-build plans have been cancelled including in Turkey with the second Japanese shareholder Mitsubishi pulling out of the Sinop project in late 2018. The perennial Polish nuclear projects have been postponed again with first power generation now envisaged by 2033. In Egypt, a site permit was issued, but nuclear electricity is not expected before 2026–27. In Jordan and Indonesia, after the cancellation of large nuclear projects, nuclear proponents are back to the drawing board, with Small Modular Reactors this time. In Kazakhstan, after years of talks, the Deputy Energy Minister stated that there was no “concrete decision” to build a nuclear plant. Saudi Arabia ploughs ahead with its nuclear plans, however, “at a slower pace than originally expected”, as Reuters put it. Thailand’s largest private power company prefers to invest in a nuclear plant in China rather than at home. Vietnam’s national energy company EVN does not even mention nuclear anymore.

Small Modular Reactors (SMRs)

Following assessments of the development status and prospects of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) in WNISR2015 and WNISR2017, this year’s update does not reveal great changes.

Argentina. The CAREM-25 project under construction since 2014 is at least three years late.

Canada. A massive lobbying effort is underway to promote SMRs for remote communities and mining operations. Development is in the design stage.

China. A high-temperature reactor under development since the 1970s has been under construction since 2012. It is currently at least three years behind schedule.

India. An Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR) design has been under development since the 1990s, and its construction start is getting continuously delayed.

Russia. Two “floating reactors” have been built. The first one went critical, with construction starting in 2007, it took at least four times as long as planned.

South Korea. The System-Integrated Modular Advanced Reactor (SMART) has been under development since 1997. In 2012, the design received approval by the Safety Authority, but nobody wants to build it in the country, because it is not cost-competitive.

United Kingdom. Rolls-Royce is the only company interested in participating in the government’s SMR competition but has requested significant subsidies that he government is apparently resisting. The Rolls-Royce design is at a very early stage but, at 450 MW, it is not really small.

United States. The Department of Energy (DOE) has generously funded companies promoting SMR development. A single design by NuScale is currently undergoing the design certification process.

Overall, there is no sign of any major breakthroughs for SMRs, either with regard to the technology or with regard to the commercial side.

Focus Countries – Widespread Extended Outages

The following nine Focus Countries plus Taiwan, covered in depth in this report, represent one-third of the nuclear countries hosting about two-thirds of the global reactor fleet and six of the world’s ten largest nuclear power producers. Key facts for year 2018:

Belgium. Nuclear provided a third less power than in 2017 and represented only 34 percent of the country’s electricity, and little more than half of the peak in 1986. Reactors were shut down for repair and upgrading for half of the year on average.

China. Nuclear power generation grew by 19 percent in 2018 and contributed 4.2 percent of all electricity generated in China, up from 3.9 percent in 2017.

Finland. Nuclear generation was stable compared to previous years. The Olkiluoto-3 EPR project was delayed again, and grid connection might take until April 2020 at least, due to pressurizer vibration problems.

France. Nuclear plants generated 3.7 percent more power than in 2017, representing 71.7 percent of the country’s electricity, just 0.1 percentage points better than in the previous year, which is the lowest share since 1988. Outages at zero capacity cumulated over 5,000 reactor-days or almost three months per reactor on average. The Flamanville-3 EPR project was delayed until at least the end of 2022. The target date to reduce the nuclear share to 50 percent was pushed back from 2025 to 2035 in the draft energy bill.

Germany. Germany’s remaining seven nuclear reactors’ generation remained almost stable (–0.4 percent) at 71.9 TWh net in 2018, about half of record year 2001. They provided a stable 11.7 percent of Germany’s electricity generation, little more than one-third of the historic maximum two decades ago (30.8 percent in 1997). In the meantime, renewables have generated close to twice as much more power (+113 TWh) than was lost through the fading nuclear production (–64 TWh) since 2010. In 2018, renewables provided 16.7 percent of final energy in Germany (in comparison, nuclear provided 17.4 percent of French final energy).

Japan. Nuclear plants provided 6.2 percent of the electricity in Japan in 2018, a significant increase over the 3.6 percent in 2017 (36 percent in 1998). As of mid-2019, nine reactors had restarted—no restart since mid-2018—and 24 remained in LTO (two were moved from LTO to closed).

South Korea. Nuclear power output dropped by another 10 percent leading to a decline of 19 percent since 2015, and supplied 23.7 percent of the country’s electricity, significantly less than half of the maximum 30 years ago (53.3 percent in 1987).

United Kingdom. Nuclear generation decreased by a further 7.5 percent and provided only 17.7 percent of the power in the country, down from the maximum of 26.9 in 1997. While construction officially started at Hinkley Point C, prospects for other new-build projects have receded with further potential investors pulling out (Japan’s Toshiba, Hitachi, Korea’s KEPCO).

United States. Nuclear power plants generated a historic maximum of 808 TWh (+3 TWh), while their share in the electricity mix dropped below 20 percent (19.3 percent), 3.2 percentage points below the record level of 22.5 percent in 1995. State subsidies have been granted to four uneconomic nuclear plants to avoid their “early closure”, four more are likely, and several others are under negotiation. However, many units remain threatened with early closure because they cannot compete in the market.

Fukushima Status Report

Over eight years have passed since the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident (Fukushima accident) began, triggered by the East Japan Great Earthquake on 11 March 2011 (also referred to as 3/11 throughout the report) and subsequent events.

Onsite Challenges

Spent Fuel Removal from the pool of Unit 3 finally started in April 2019. Target dates for the start of the operation for Units 1 and 2 are “around FY 2023”. Debris removal from the pool of Unit 1 was completed in February 2019. For Unit 2 work has not begun, as the spent fuel removal process has been redesigned.

A Fuel Debris Removal method was supposed to be designed by FY 2019. However, as of mid-year, no announcement has been made. Removal from the first unit was supposed to start by 2021, which does not seem credible at this point.

Contaminated Water Management. Large quantities of water are still continuously being injected to cool the fuel debris of Units 1–3. The highly contaminated water runs out of the cracked containments into the basements where it mixes with water that has penetrated the basements from an underground river. The commissioning of a dedicated bypass system and the pumping of groundwater has reduced the influx of water from around 400 m3/day to about 170 m3/day. An equivalent amount of water is partially decontaminated and stored in 1,000-m3 tanks. Thus, a new tank is needed every six days. The storage capacity onsite has been increased to over 1.1 million m3 and will be enlarged to 1.4 million m3 by the end of 2020. The ocean release of the water remains widely contested, especially since it was revealed that a large share of the water does not even meet the safety regulations for release.

Worker Health. As of February 2019, there were almost 7,300 workers involved in decommissioning work on-site, 87 percent of whom were subcontractors of Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO). A Health Ministry investigation showed that over half of 290 involved companies were in violation of some kind of labor legislation. In 2018, two additional workers’ illnesses were recognized as radiation-induced, bringing to six the number of acknowledged occupational diseases due to work at Fukushima.

Offsite Challenges

Amongst the main offsite issues are the future of tens of thousands of evacuees, the assessment of health consequences of the disaster, the management of decontamination wastes and the costs involved.

Evacuees. As of April 2019, almost 40,000 Fukushima Prefecture residents—not including “self-evacuees”—are still officially designated evacuees of whom about 7,200 are living in the prefecture. According to the Prefecture, the number peaked just under 165,000 in May 2012. The government has continued to lift restriction orders for affected municipalities. However, according to a recent survey by the Reconstruction Agency, e.g. only 5 percent of the people returned to Namie Town, while half of the former residents already decided not to return. Others remain undecided. The treatment of voluntary evacuees is worsening. Fukushima Prefecture stopped providing free housing in March 2017 and terminated rent assistance for low-income households in March 2019. Once the free housing offer is terminated, they are no longer considered voluntary evacuees and disappear from the statistics. The Special Rapporteurs from the UN Human Rights Commission repeatedly raised concerns about the Japanese policies concerning evacuees and human rights violations linked to families and workers.

Health Issues. Officially, as of April 2019, a total of 212 people have been diagnosed with a malignant tumor or suspected of having a malignant tumor and 169 people underwent surgery. While the cause-effect relationship between Fukushima-related radiation exposure and illnesses has not been established, questions have been raised about the examination procedure itself and the processing of information.

Food Contamination. According to official statistics, among 300,000 samples taken in FY 2018 a total of 313 food items were identified in excess of the legal limits (a significant increase over the 200 items found in FY 2017). As of April 2019, in 23 countries post-3/11 import restrictions remain in place.

Decontamination. Decontamination activities in the Special Decontamination Area ended in March 2018 and generated 16.5 million m3 of contaminated soil. Outside Fukushima Prefecture, contaminated soil is stored in more than 28,000 places (333,000 m3). As of April 2019, only about 20 percent of the soil had been moved to dedicated storage areas.

Decommissioning Status Report – Soaring Costs

As an increasing number of nuclear facilities either reaches the end of their pre-determined operational lifetimes or closes due to deteriorating economic conditions, the challenges of reactor decommissioning are coming to the fore.

As of mid-2019, 162 of the 181 closed reactors in the world (eight more than a year earlier) are awaiting or are in various stages of decommissioning.

Only 19 units have been fully decommissioned: 13 in the U.S., five in Germany, and one in Japan. Of these, only 10 have been returned to greenfield sites. No change over the year since WNISR2018.

Case Studies : In France , decommissioning of the small 80 MW Brennilis reactor will be further delayed, with the earliest possible completion in 2038. In Germany , Neckarwestheim-1 and Philippsburg-1 were defueled. In Italy , decommissioning cost estimates for the four reactors that used to be operated have almost doubled since 2004 to US$8.1 billion. In Lithuania , decommissioning cost estimates for two Soviet, Chernobyl-type reactors increased by two-thirds in five years to US$3.7 billion. If waste management and disposal was included, costs would increase to US$6.8 billion, leaving an estimated funding gap of US$4.7 billion. In Spain , decommissioning cost estimates for the first 240-MW unit to close in 2006 have doubled since to US$292 million. In the U.S. , sales of closed reactors and transfers of decommissioning funds to private waste management companies is spreading. Of ten units undergoing decommissioning, six were sold to such commercial decommissioning companies. The practice raises obvious liability questions in case the available funds run out.

Nuclear Power vs. Renewable Energy Deployment

Cost. Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) analysis for the U.S. shows that the total costs of renewables are now below of coal and combined cycle gas. Between 2009 and 2018, utility-scale solar costs came down 88 percent and wind 69 percent, while new nuclear costs increased by 23 percent.

Investment. In 2018, the reported global investment decisions for the construction of nuclear power totaled around US$33 billion for 6.2 GW, which is less than a quarter of the investment in wind and solar individually, with over US$134 billion investment in wind power and US$139 billion in solar, and this year’s investment was higher than previous years, but skewed by the start of construction of the extremely expensive Hinkley Point C in the U.K. China remains the top investor in renewables, spending US$91 billion in 2018; however, this was significantly lower than the record US$146 billion invested in 2017, due to dropping prices and to policy changes over the year.

Installed Capacity. In 2018, the 165 GW of renewables added to the world’s power grids, up from 157 GW added the previous year, set a new record. Wind added 49.2 GW and solar-photovoltaics (PV) 96 GW, both slightly below the 2017-levels. These numbers compare to a net 8.8 GW increase for nuclear power.

Electricity Generation. Ten of the 31 nuclear countries, Brazil, China, Germany, India, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Spain, South Africa and U.K.—a list that includes three of the world’s four largest economies—generated more electricity in 2018 from non-hydro renewables than from nuclear power. That is one more, South Africa, than in 2017.

In 2018, annual growth for global electricity generation from solar was 29 percent, for wind power about 13 percent. Both growth rates are down compared to 2017, from 38 percent and 18 percent respectively. Nuclear power increased output by 2.4 percent in 2018, mainly due to China, versus +1 percent in 2017.

Compared to 1997, when the Kyoto Protocol on climate change was signed, in 2018 an additional 1,259 TWh of wind power was produced globally and 584 TWh of solar PV electricity, compared to nuclear’s additional 299 TWh. Over the past decade, non-hydro renewables have added more kilowatt-hours than coal or gas and twice as many as hydropower, while nuclear plants generated less power in 2018 than in 2008.

In China, as in the previous six years, in 2018, electricity production from wind alone (366 TWh) by far exceeded that from nuclear (277 TWh), with solar power catching up quickly (178 TWh).

The same phenomenon is seen in India, where wind power (60 TWh) outpaced nuclear—stagnating at 35 TWh—for the third year in a row. At the same time, solar power soared from 11 TWh in 2016 to 31 TWh in 2018, now hot on nuclear’s tail.

In the U.S., in 2018, 211 GW of existing coal capacity, or 74 percent of the national fleet, was at risk from local wind or solar that could provide the same amount of electricity more cheaply. In April 2019, for the first time ever, renewables (hydro, biomass, wind, solar and geothermal) generated more electricity than coal-fired plants across the U.S. Wind and solar generation topped coal’s output in Texas in the first quarter of 2019, the first time that this has happened on a quarterly basis.

In the European Union virtually all new capacity added in 2018 was renewable (95 percent wind, solar and biomass). Wind alone supplied 11.6 percent of the EU’s total power in 2018, led by Denmark at a remarkable 41 percent, Portugal and Ireland at 28 percent, and Germany at 21 percent with Spain and the U.K. at 19 percent (up from 13.5 percent in 2017). Compared to 1997, in 2018, EU wind turbines produced an additional 371 TWh and solar 128 TWh, while nuclear power generation declined by 94 TWh.

Climate Change and Nuclear Power

The Stakes. To protect the climate, we must abate the most carbon at the least cost—and in the least time—so we must pay attention to carbon, cost, and time, not to carbon alone.

Nuclear Power vs. Climate Protection Options. If existing nuclear generation (one-tenth of global commercial electricity) displaced an average mix of fossil-fueled power generation, it would offset the equivalent of 4 percent of total global CO2 emissions. Expanding nuclear power could displace other generators—fossil-fueled or renewable. Renewables and efficiency can “bolster energy security” at least as well as nuclear power can. The nuclear industry has become one of the most potent obstacles to renewables’ further progress by diverting demand and capital to itself. New operating subsidies for uneconomic reactors in the U.S. or preferential dispatch like the “nuclear-must-run” rule in Japan lead to uncompetitive generation to serve demand for which efficiency and renewables are not allowed to compete.

Non-Nuclear Options Save More Carbon Per Dollar. Nuclear new-build costs have been on the rise for many years (see previous WNISR editions). Just in the past five years, U.S. solar and wind prices fell by two-thirds, putting new nuclear power out of the money by about 5–10-fold (see Nuclear Power vs. Renewable Energy Deployment). Nuclear new-build costs many times more per kWh, so it buys many times less climate solution per dollar than major low-carbon competitors—efficiency, wind and solar. Newer technologies do not change this: in the latest nuclear designs, so-called Gen-III+ reactors, ~78–87 percent of total costs is for the non-nuclear part. Thus, if the other ~13–22 percent, the “nuclear island”, were free, the rest of the plant would still be grossly uncompetitive with renewables or efficiency. That is, even free steam from any kind of fuel or fission is not good enough, because the rest of the plant costs too much. The business case for modern renewables is so convincing to investors that the latest official U.S. forecast foresees 45 GW of renewable additions from mid-2019 to mid-2022, vs. net retirements of 7 GW for nuclear and 17 GW for coal.

In many nuclear countries, new renewables can now compete with existing nuclear power plants and their operating, maintenance and fuel costs. While reactor-by-reactor data is not available, published information illustrates that many nuclear plants are not competitive anymore. Their closure will not directly save CO2 emissions but can indirectly save more CO2 than closing a coal-fired plant, if the nuclear plant’s larger saved operating costs are reinvested in efficiency or cheap modern renewables that in turn displace more fossil-fueled generation.

Substitution for Closed Nuclear Plants. Four cases from four different states in the U.S. illustrate that the combination of strong efficiency and renewables policies could not only make up for the loss of nuclear production but allowed for the decrease of coal-based power generation and led to overall CO2 emissions reductions.

Non-Nuclear Options Save More Carbon Per Year. While some nuclear countries had a particularly fast buildup in the 1970s and 1980s (Belgium, France, Sweden, U.S.), many nuclear countries show faster buildup of renewables than in their nuclear program (China, Germany, Italy, India, Spain, U.K., and Scotland individually). A key point is that while current nuclear programs are particularly slow, current renewables programs are particularly fast (as WNISR has documented over the past decade). According to a recent assessment, new nuclear plants take 5–17 years longer to build than utility-scale solar or onshore wind power, so existing fossil-fueled plants emit far more CO2 while awaiting substitution by the nuclear option. In 2018, non-hydro renewables outpaced the world’s most aggressive nuclear program, in China, by a factor of two, in India by a factor of three.

Stabilizing the climate is urgent, nuclear power is slow. It meets no technical or operational need that these low-carbon competitors cannot meet better, cheaper, and faster. Even sustaining economically distressed reactors saves less carbon per dollar and per year than reinvesting its avoidable operating cost (let alone its avoidable new subsidies) into cheaper efficiency and renewables.

Introduction

The first word in the introduction to the 2018-edition of the World Nuclear Industry Status Report (WNISR) was “Heat”. Since then, many registered temperature records around the world were broken and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued its most urgent report to date. Over the past year, more than 900 local governments in 18 countries representing over 200 million people have “declared a climate emergency and committed to action to drive down emissions at emergency speed”, a movement spreading rapidly.

As the greenhouse gas emissions generated by the construction and operation of nuclear power systems are relatively low—depending on the systems providing the energy necessary to provide mining and milling services, construction materials, transport, waste processing and storage, and, especially, uranium enrichment—some voices have been increasingly audible pushing for lifetime extensions of existing nuclear power plants or the construction of new ones “to address Climate Change”.

WNISR2019 devotes a substantial new chapter (see Climate Change and Nuclear Power) to the question whether the use of nuclear power represents an effective tool to fight the rapidly worsening Climate Emergency. The question raises a complex mix of economic, industrial and systemic issues. However, the outcome of the analysis is surprisingly clear. The underlying challenge of any potential tool to combat Climate Change is making the best use of every invested dollar, euro or yuan in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as quickly as possible. Nuclear new-build turns out to be not only the most expensive, but also the slowest option to bring results. And while other electricity generating technologies are experiencing dramatically declining costs—system costs for utility-scale solar photovoltaics dropped by 88 percent in a decade—the price tag of new nuclear power increased (by 23 percent). Even existing, amortized operating nuclear plants are less and less in a position to compete with other options like energy efficiency and renewables, not taking into account system effects like their role as powerful barriers to innovation, investment and effective energy transition measures. We are not assessing here specific technical issues, including the fact that nuclear power is the most water-consuming way to generate electricity and the multiple threats that Climate Change pose to nuclear facilities. It comes as no surprise that in the summer of 2019 a number of reactors again had to reduce output or shut down entirely in several European countries, as water levels were low in rivers and sea temperatures were heating up. Rising sea levels and the increasing frequency of droughts, flooding, severe storms and wildfires raise the risk levels. Operators and regulators only recently began to develop specific programs to address these issues. They could be the subject of a future WNISR focus.

With WNISR2018, we started to assess the performance of the French nuclear sector reactor-by-reactor and this edition presents the complementary analysis to get a full picture of the year 2018. The outcome might come as a big surprise to many readers. The average outage (at zero power, not including reduced output) per unit for the 58 French reactors was almost three months (87.6 days) per year, totaling over 5,000 reactor-days (see France Focus). A new, equivalent analysis on Belgium shows that the seven units in the country were down half of the year on average (see Belgium Focus). There are multiple reasons for this poor performance, with systematically extended maintenance and refurbishment outages at these aging facilities being the principal cause.

The past year since the release of WNISR2018 has seen China completing the commissioning of the first Generation-III reactors, designed by western companies Framatome-Siemens (two EPRs at Taishan) and Westinghouse (four AP-1000 with two each at Sanmen and Haiyang). Questions remain about the pace at which China will continue to expand its nuclear program. Another year went by without any new commercial reactor construction being launched in China, with the latest one started in December 2016 (see China Focus). There were press reports about three new government authorizations but any new project has yet to officially begin (pouring of concrete for the base slab of the reactor building).

While the first foreign Generation III reactors went into commercial operation in China, the European EPR projects in France and Finland continue their erratic path towards completion. The French regulator requires the costly, time-consuming repair of welding defects in the main steam line of the Flamanville-3 project, delaying startup to at least end of 2022. Meanwhile, builder AREVA-Siemens is struggling with so-far-unresolved pressurizer vibration issues at the Olkiluoto-3 unit in Finland, delaying grid connection at least to April 2020 (see Finland Focus).

In Japan, no new units have been restarted since mid-2018—four restarted in the first half of 2018—and there are still only nine operating reactors in the country. Two additional reactors have been slated for decommissioning, bringing the total of units abandoned since 3/11—the beginning of the Fukushima disaster—to 17. In addition, in July 2019, operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) announced its decision to decommission the four Fukushima Daini reactors (15 km from the Fukushima Daichi site). WNISR has for years considered the Fukushima Daini units as closed. As of mid-2019, 24 reactors remain in Long-Term Outage (LTO) with uncertain prospects for restart, still highly controversial amongst the Japanese public (see Japan Focus).

On 28 June 2019, the EPR project at Hinkley Point C project in the U.K. was finally officially declared as “under construction”, almost seven months after the beginning of the concreting of the foundations for the reactor building—the usual international setpoint for construction start. Other new-build projects in the U.K. continue to run into trouble. After the pullout of various English, French, German and Spanish utilities from the U.K. “market”, the Japanese Hitachi Group abandoned the Wylfa and Oldbury projects, writing off a ¥300 billion (US$2.75 billion) impairment (see United Kingdom Focus).

In the U.S., there has been little change in the outlook. Many reactors remain threatened with closure long before their licenses expire because they cannot compete in the market. In some cases, the nuclear industry has been lobbying successfully for subsidies at state level, to help avoiding “early closures” of uneconomic reactors. Five reactors in three states have thus been “saved” for a few years, a mere postponement of closure in an economic environment that is likely to only get worse. The only active new-build project in the U.S., at the Vogtle plant in Georgia, is accumulating cost and time overruns. Unlike in other states, Georgia Power was authorized to charge its customers for increasing construction costs. It was estimated that by 2018 each 1,000 kWh/month Georgia Power customer would pay US$10 every month towards the project, currently scheduled to bring the first of two units online by November 2021. Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), the public utility that started up the last nuclear reactors ever commissioned in the U.S. in 1996 (Watts Bar-1) and 2016 (Watts Bar-2), stated in its latest Integrated Resource Plan that, while new capacity would be necessary, it would not add any “baseload resources” capacity such as nuclear or coal over the next 20 years “except in the case where Small Modular Reactors are promoted for resiliency”.

Small Modular Reactors or SMRs have made little progress since the WNISR2017 assessment as this edition’s update concludes “it has become evident that they will be even less capable of competing economically than large nuclear plants, which have themselves been increasingly uncompetitive” (see Small Modular Reactors).

The WNISR’s overview of the status of decommissioning of closed reactors identifies few major developments, except the consolidation of a trend in the U.S. where utilities sell their closed reactors and transfer decommissioning funds to commercial waste management companies. While eight additional reactors are closed, no new decommissioning project has been completed, and the gap between the two indicators keeps widening.

The traditional Nuclear Power vs. Renewable Energy chapter shows that it has become increasingly clear: non-hydro renewables are no longer just cheaper than new-build nuclear but they are now broadly competitive with new-coal—and increasingly with operating nuclear and coal plants whose construction costs have been paid off (amortized). Coal is the largest source of electricity globally, with almost four times the output share of nuclear power. Therefore, outcompeting coal will open up new opportunities for renewable energy, which will further drive down their production costs and increase system integration experience, further speeding up their deployment.

General Overview Worldwide

The Historic Expansion of Nuclear Power – Forecasting vs. Reality

The use of nuclear energy remains limited to a small part of the world, with only 31 countries or 16 percent of the 193 members of the United Nations, operating nuclear power plants. That number has remained stable since Iran started up its first reactor in 2011. When the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) was signed in 1968, ten countries had operating nuclear power reactors (grid connected) and twenty additional countries generated nuclear electricity by 1985. But only four countries (Mexico, China, Romania, Iran) started up commercial reactors over the past 30 years, while three countries (Italy, Kazakhstan, Lithuania) abandoned their programs. Nine of the current 31 nuclear countries have either nuclear phase-out, no-new-build >or no-program-extension policies in place. Eleven countries with operating plants are currently building new reactors; another eleven countries with operating plants currently have no active construction ongoing (see Figure 1). In addition, there are four newcomer countries (Bangladesh, Belarus, Turkey, United Arab Emirates) that are building reactors for the first time.

Sources: WNISR, with IAEA-PRIS, 2019

Note: Japan is counted here among countries with “active construction”—however it is possible that the only project under active construction (Shimane-3) will be abandoned.

The NPT was meant to stimulate the development of nuclear energy programs around the world while limiting the spread of military explosives applications to the five historic nuclear weapon states. In 1974, the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) “most likely” scenario envisaged an installed capacity of over 3,500 GW by year 2000, while the high scenario imagined more than 5,000 GW. It is these forecasts that triggered the launch of massive plutonium separation programs, as the fear of a rapid natural uranium shortage led many nuclear organizations, in particular the French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), to push for the early, large-scale introduction of plutonium-fueled fast breeder reactors. The U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and other organizations all considered levels above 1,500 GW operating nuclear capacity plausible by 2000. In reality, the expansion of nuclear power remained far below expectations. In 2000, a total capacity of 350 GW was operating in the world, just one tenth of the IAEA’s “most likely” scenario of 1974 (see Figure 2). As of mid-2019, total operating capacity has barely grown to its historic peak of 370 GW, a net addition of little more than 1 GW per year over the past two decades.

Source: Klaus Gufler, “Short and Mid-term Trends of the Development of Nuclear Energy”, June 2013

Production and Role of Nuclear Power

The world nuclear fleet generated 2,563 net terawatt-hours (TWh or billion kilowatt-hours) of electricity in 2018, a 2.4 percent increase over the previous year—essentially due to China’s nuclear output increasing by 44 TWh (+19 percent)—but still 4 percent below the historic peak of 2006 (see Figure 3). For the first time in four years, without China, global nuclear power generation has slightly increased again (+0.7 percent) in 2018 but remained below the level of 2014. In other words, world nuclear production outside China dropped more in the period 2015–17 than it added in 2018. The numbers illustrate that China continues to dominate the upwards-leaning indicators in nuclear statistics.

Nuclear energy’s share of global commercial gross electricity generation continues its slow but steady decline from a peak of 17.5 percent in 1996 to 10.15 percent in 2018 (10.28 percent in 2017). The nuclear contribution to commercial primary energy remained stable at 4.4 percent. It has been at this level since 2014 and constitutes a 30-year low.

In 2018, nuclear generation increased in 14 countries, declined in 12, and remained stable in five. Six countries (China, Hungary, Mexico, Pakistan, Russia, U.S.) achieved their greatest ever nuclear production in 2018.

The following remarkable developments for the year 2018 illustrate the volatile operational situation of the individual national reactor fleets (see country-specific sections for details):

Armenia’s only operating reactor dropped generation by 21 percent. The output will likely decline further in 2019 as the unit was shut down in mid-year for extensive repair and upgrade.

Belgium’s output plunged by 32 percent due to the extension of outages for maintenance, repair and upgrade. On average, Belgium’s seven units have each been down for half of the year (see Belgium Focus ).

). China started up seven new nuclear reactors during the year, a remarkable achievement, and contributed 44 TWh of the total increase of 60 TWh worldwide (see China Focus ).

). France increased output by 14 TWh (+3.7 percent), remaining however well below expectations (see France Focus ).

). Japan restarted four more units bringing the total of operating reactors to nine and boosting production by 20 TWh (+68.4 percent) (see Japan Focus ).

). South Korea’s nuclear production dropped by 10 percent (–14 TWh) due to extended outages for inspection and repair. One of the specific issues that has led to delays in restarts of reactors has been the discovery in 2017 of Containment Liner Plate (CLP) corrosion in various reactors (see South Korea Focus ).

). Switzerland’s generation increased by 25 percent after the restart of one of the five-reactor fleet that had been down for years following the discovery of numerous crack indications in its pressure vessel (see Switzerland section ).

). Taiwan increased output by 24 percent after the restart of two reactors following long outages. However, generation remained below the level of 2016 (see Taiwan Focus ).

). The U.S. registered its all-time highest nuclear electricity generation. While the increase over the previous record in 2010 (+1 TWh) remains marginal, it is noteworthy that the country operated six fewer reactors in 2018 than in 2010 (97/103). Even the installed capacity was slightly lower in 2018 than in 2010 (98.7 GW/100.4 GW), a clear indication that operational efficiency has continued to improve (see U.S. Focus ).

Figure 3 | Nuclear Electricity Generation in the World... and China

Sources: WNISR, with BP, IAEA-PRIS, 2019

As in previous years, in 2018, the “big five” nuclear generating countries—by rank, the U.S., France, China, Russia and South Korea—generated 70 percent of all nuclear electricity in the world (see Figure 4, left side). In 2002, China held position 15, in 2007 it was tenth, before reaching third place in 2016. Two countries, the U.S. and France, with 47 percent accounted again for nearly half of global nuclear production in 2018.

In many cases, even where nuclear power generation increased, the addition is not keeping pace with overall increases in electricity production, leading to a nuclear share below the respective historic maximum (see Figure 4, right side). It is therefore remarkable that, in 2018, there were 20 countries that maintained their nuclear share at a constant level (change of less than 1 percentage point) while seven decreased their nuclear shares. Only four countries increased the role of nuclear power in their electricity mix by more than 1 point (Czech Republic, Japan, Switzerland and Taiwan), all of them mainly through restarts of units after prolonged outages. Only two countries (China and Pakistan) reached new historic peak shares of nuclear in their respective power mix, both at marginal increases getting to still very modest levels, +0.3 percentage points for China (reaching a share of 4.2 percent) and +0.6 percentage points for Pakistan (attaining 6.8 percent.)

Source: IAEA-PRIS, 2019

Operation, Power Generation, Age Distribution

Since the first nuclear power reactor was connected to the Soviet power grid at Obninsk in 1954, there have been two major waves of startups. The first peaked in 1974, with 26 grid connections in that year. The second reached a historic maximum in 1984 and 1985, just before the Chernobyl accident, reaching 33 grid connections in each year. By the end of the 1980s, the uninterrupted net increase of operating units had ceased, and in 1990 for the first time the number of reactor closures outweighed the number of startups. The 1991–2000 decade produced far more startups than closures (52/30), while in the decade 2001–2010, startups did not match closures (32/35). Furthermore, after 2000, it took a whole decade to connect as many units as in a single year in the middle of the 1980s. Between 2011 and mid-2019, the startup of 56 reactors—of which 35 (almost two thirds) in China alone—outpaced by six the closure of 50 units over the same period. As there were no closures in China over the period, the 50 closures outside China were only met by 21 startups, a startling decline by 29 units over the period. (See Figure 5).

Sources: WNISR, with IAEA-PRIS, 2019

Notes

As of 2019, WNISR is using the term “Closed” instead of “Permanent Shutdown” for reactors that have ceased power production, as WNISR considers the reactors closed as of the date of their last production. Although this definition is not new, it had not been applied to all reactors or fully reflected in the WNISR database; this applies to known/referenced examples like Superphénix in France, which had not produced in the two years before it was officially closed or the Italian reactors that were de facto closed prior to the referendum in 1987, or some other cases. Those changes obviously affect many of the Figures relating to the world nuclear reactor fleet (Startup and Closures, Evolution of world fleet, Age of closed reactors, amongst others.)

After the startup of 10 reactors in each of the years 2015 and 2016, only four units started up in 2017, of which three in China and one in Pakistan (built by Chinese companies). In 2018, nine reactors generated power for the first time, of which seven in China and one each in Russia and South Korea, while three units were closed, of which two in Russia and one in the U.S. (See Figure 6).

Sources: WNISR, with IAEA-PRIS, 2019

In the first half of 2019, four reactors started up in the world, two of which were in China (Taishan-2, Yangjiang-6) and one each in Russia (Novovoronezh 2-2) and South Korea (Shin-Kori-4), while one unit was closed in the U.S. (Pilgrim-1).

As of mid-August 2019, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) continues to count 37 units in Japan (five less than in mid-2018) in its total number of 451 reactors “in operation” in the world (two less than mid-2018); yet no nuclear electricity was generated in Japan between September 2013 and August 2015, and as of 1 July 2019, only nine reactors were operating (see Japan Focus). Nuclear plants provided only 6.2 percent of the electricity in Japan in 2018.

The WNISR reiterates its call for an appropriate reflection in world nuclear statistics of the unique situation in Japan. The attitude taken by the IAEA, the Japanese government, utilities, industry and many research bodies as well as other governments and organizations to continue considering the entire stranded reactor fleet in the country as “in operation” or “operational” is misleading.

The IAEA actually does have a reactor-status category called “Long-term Shutdown” or LTS. Under the IAEA’s definition, a reactor is considered in LTS, if it has been shut down for an “extended period (usually more than one year)”, and in early period of shutdown either restart is not being “aggressively pursued” or “no firm restart date or recovery schedule has been established”. The IAEA currently lists zero reactors anywhere in the LTS category.

The IAEA criteria are vague and hence subject to arbitrary interpretation. What exactly are extended periods? What is aggressively pursuing? What is a firm restart date or recovery schedule? Faced with this dilemma, the WNISR team in 2014 decided to create a new category with a simple definition, based on empirical fact, without room for speculation: “Long-term Outage” or LTO. Its definition:

A nuclear reactor is considered in Long-term Outage or LTO if it has not generated any electricity in the previous calendar year and in the first half of the current calendar year. It is withdrawn from operational status retroactively from the day it has been disconnected from the grid.

When subsequently the decision is taken to close a reactor, the closure status starts with the day of the last electricity generation, and the WNISR statistics are retroactively modified accordingly.

Applying this definition to the world nuclear reactor fleet, as of 1 July 2019, leads to classifying 28 units in LTO—all considered “in operation” by the IAEA—four fewer than in WNISR2018, of which 24 in Japan, and one each in Canada, China, South Korea and Taiwan. Four reactors restarted from LTO since mid-2018, two in India (Kakrapar-1 and -2) and one each in Argentina (Embalse) and France (Paluel-2). Three reactors, two in Japan (Genkai-2, Onagawa-1) and one in Taiwan (Chinshan-1), moved from LTO to closed.

For years, WNISR has considered all ten Fukushima reactors closed. In July 2019, operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) finally officialized the closure and announced plans to decommission the four Fukushima Daini reactors (see Table 5 and Annex 3 for a detailed overview of the status of the Japanese nuclear fleet).

As of 1 July 2019, a total of 417 nuclear reactors were operating in 31 countries, up four units from the situation in July 2018. The current world fleet has a total nominal electric net capacity of 370 GW, up by 6.7 GW (+1.9 percent) from one year earlier (see Figure 7). While the number of operating reactors remains below the figure reached in 1989 and nuclear electricity generation is still a few percent below the 2006 peak, this is a new historic maximum for operating capacity.

Sources: WNISR, with IAEA-PRIS, 2019

Note

Changes in the database regarding closing dates of reactors or LTO status slightly change the shape of this graph from previous editions. In particular, the previous “maximum operating capacity” of 2006 (overtaken in July 2019) is now at 367 GW.

For many years, the net installed capacity has continued to increase more than the net number of operating reactors. In 1989, the average size of an operational nuclear reactor was about 740 MW, while that number has increased to almost 890 MW in 2019. This is a result of the combined effects of larger units replacing smaller ones and technical alterations to raise capacity at existing plants resulting in larger electricity output, a process known as uprating. In the United States alone, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has approved 164 uprates since 1977. The cumulative approved uprates in the U.S. total 7.9 GW, the equivalent of eight large reactors. No additional uprates were approved since April 2018 and there are no pending applications as of mid-2019. However, four additional applications are expected during the rest of the year.

A similar trend of uprates and major overhauls in view of lifetime extensions of existing reactors has been seen in Europe. The main incentive for lifetime extensions is economic but this argument is being increasingly challenged as backfitting costs soar and alternatives become cheaper.

Overview of Current New-Build

As of 1 July 2019, 46 reactors are considered here as under construction, the lowest number in a decade, falling for the sixth year in a row—four fewer than WNISR reported a year ago, and 22 fewer than in 2013 (five of these units have already subsequently been abandoned). Three in four reactors are built in Asia and Eastern Europe. In total, 16 countries are building nuclear plants, one more (U.K.) than reported in WNISR2018 (see Table 1).

Five building projects were launched in 2018, one each in Bangladesh, Russia, South Korea, Turkey and the U.K. In the first half of 2019, only one project started construction in the world, in Russia. Russian companies are also building the reactors in Bangladesh and Turkey, Russia is therefore involved in four of these six projects launched since the beginning of 2018.

The figure of 46 reactors listed as under construction by mid-2019 compares poorly with a peak of 234—totaling more than 200 GW—in 1979. However, many (48) of those projects listed in 1979 were never finished (see Figure 8). The year 2005, with 26 units under construction, marked a record low since the early nuclear age in the 1950s. Compared to the situation described a year ago, the total capacity of units now under construction in the world dropped again, by 3.9 GW to 44.6 GW, with a rather stable average unit size of 969 MW (see Annex 7 for details).

Sources: WNISR, with IAEA-PRIS, 2019

Table 1 | Nuclear Reactors “Under Construction” (as of 1 July 2019)

Country Units Capacity

(MW net) Construction Starts Grid Connection Units Behind Schedule China 10 8 800 2012 - 2017 2020 - 2023 2-3 India 7 4 824 2004 - 2017 2019 - 2023 5 Russia 5 3 379 2007 - 2019 2019 - 2023 3 UAE 4 5 380 2012 - 2015 2020 - 2023 4 South Korea 4 5 360 2012 - 2018 2019 - 2024 4 Belarus 2 2 218 2013 - 2014 2019 - 2020 1-2 Bangladesh 2 2 160 2017 - 2018 2023 - 2024 0 Slovakia 2 880 1985 2020 - 2021 2 USA 2 2 234 2013 2021 - 2022 2 Pakistan 2 2 028 2015 - 2016 2020 - 2021 0 Japan 1 1 325 2007 ? 1 Argentina 1 25 2014 2021 1 UK 1 1 630 2018 2025 0 Finland 1 1 600 2005 2020 1 France 1 1 600 2007 2022 1 Turkey 1 1 114 2018 2024 0 Total 46 44 557 1985 - 2019 2019 - 2025 27-29

Sources: Compiled by WNISR. 2019

Note

This table does not contain suspended or abandoned constructions.

Construction Times

Construction Times of Reactors Currently Under Construction

A closer look at projects presently listed as “under construction” illustrates the level of uncertainty and problems associated with many of these projects, especially given that most builders assume a five-year construction period to begin with:

As of 1 July 2019, the 46 reactors being built have been under construction for an average of 6.7 years, and many remain far from completion.

All reactors under construction in at least half of the 16 countries have experienced mostly year-long delays. At least 27 (59 percent) of the building projects are delayed. Most of the units which are nominally being built on-time were begun within the past three years or have not yet reached projected startup dates, making it difficult to assess whether or not they are on schedule. Particular uncertainty remains over construction sites in Belarus, China and UAE.

reactors under construction in at least half of the 16 countries have experienced mostly year-long delays. At least 27 (59 percent) of the building projects are delayed. Most of the units which are nominally being built on-time were begun within the past three years or have not yet reached projected startup dates, making it difficult to assess whether or not they are on schedule. Particular uncertainty remains over construction sites in Belarus, China and UAE. Of the 27 reactors clearly documented as behind schedule, at least eleven have reported increased delays and five have reported new delays over the past year since WNISR2018.

delays and five have reported delays over the past year since WNISR2018. WNISR2017 noted a total of 19 reactors scheduled for startup in 2018, one of these started up already in 2017. At the beginning of 2018, 15 reactors were still scheduled for startup during the year, but only nine made it, while the others were delayed at least into 2019.

one of these started up already in 2017. At the beginning of 2018, 15 reactors were still scheduled for startup during the year, but only nine made it, while the others were delayed at least into 2019. Construction on two projects started over 30 years ago, Mochovce-3 and -4 in Slovakia, and their startup has been further delayed, currently to 2020–21.

Mochovce-3 and -4 in Slovakia, and their startup has been further delayed, currently to 2020–21. Four reactors have been listed as “ under construction ” for a decade or more: the Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) in India, the Olkiluoto-3 reactor project in Finland, Shimane-3 in Japan and the French Flamanville-3 unit. The Finnish, French and Indian projects have been further delayed this year, and the Japanese one does not even have a provisional startup date.

The actual lead time for nuclear plant projects includes not only the construction itself but also lengthy licensing procedures in most countries, complex financing negotiations, site preparation and other infrastructure development. As the U.K.’s Hinkley Point C project illustrates, a significant share of investment and work was carried out before even entering the official construction phase (see United Kingdom Focus).

Construction Times of Past and Currently Operating Reactors

There has been a clear global trend towards increasing construction times. National building programs were faster in the early years of nuclear power. As Figure 9 illustrates, construction times of reactors completed in the 1970s and 1980s were quite homogenous, while in the past two decades they have varied widely.

Sources: WNISR, with IAEA-PRIS, 2019

The seven units completed in 2018 by the Chinese nuclear industry averaged 7.7 years of construction time, while the two Russian projects took a mean 22.3 years to connect to the grid, with Rostov-4 taking 35 years to finally generate power (see The Construction Saga of Rostov Reactors 3 and 4) and Leningrad 2-1 close to 10 years. The mean construction time for the nine reactors started up in 2018 was 10.9 years.

Sources: WNISR with IAEA-PRIS, 2019

Note

Expected construction time is based on grid connection data provided at construction start when available; alternatively best estimates are used, based on commercial operation, completion, or commissioning information.

There is only one unit that in the past 18 months started up on time, and that is Tianwan-4 in China, a Russian-designed but mainly Chinese-built VVER-1000 (model V-428M), that the designers claim to belong to Gen-III, but few details are known. The two Chinese units Yangjiang-5 and -6 were completed with minor delays in 4.7 and 5.5 years respectively. These are ACPR-1000 reactors, designed by China General Nuclear Corp. (CGN) that it claims contain at least ten improvements making them a Gen-III design. Leaving the epic Rostov-4 case aside, the other six units that started up in China (four AP-1000s, two EPRs), the two in Russia and the one in South Korea all experienced years-long delays and roughly doubled their respective planned construction time to 8.3–9.8 years (see Figure 10).

The longer-term perspective confirms that short construction times remain the exceptions. Nine countries completed 63 reactors over the past decade—of which 37 in China alone—after an average construction time of 9.8 years (see Table 2), a slight improvement over the decade 2008–mid-2018 with 10.1 years.

Table 2 | Reactor Construction Times 2009–mid-2019

Construction Times of 63 Units Started-up 2009-7/2019 Country Units Construction Time (in Years) Mean Time Minimum Maximum China 37 6.0 4.1 11.2 Russia 8 22.2 8.1 35.0 South Korea 6 6.0 4.1 9.6 India 5 9.8 7.2 14.2 Pakistan 3 5.4 5.2 5.6 Argentina 1 33.0 33.0 Iran 1 36.3 36.3 Japan 1 5.1 5.1 USA 1 43.5 43.5 World 63 9.8 4.1 43.5

Sources: Compiled by WNISR. 2019

Construction Starts and Cancellations

The number of annual construction starts in the world peaked in 1976 at 44, of which 12 projects were later abandoned. In 2010, there were 15 construction starts—including 10 in China alone—the highest level since 1985 (see Figure 11). That number dropped to five in 2017 and five in 2018. The construction starts in 2018 were unusually diverse as one each took place in Bangladesh, Russia, South Korea, Turkey and U.K. Also, with Bangladesh and Turkey, the list contains two newcomer countries. In both countries, the projects are implemented by the Russian nuclear industry. In Turkey work started at the Akkuyu site, a project that has been proposed since the 1970s. As of mid-2019, only one project got officially underway in the world so far this year, Kursk 2-2 in Russia.

Sources: WNISR, with IAEA-PRIS, 2019

Seriously affected by the Fukushima events, China did not start any construction in 2011 and 2014 and began work only on seven units in between. While Chinese utilities started building six more units in 2015, the number shrank to two in 2016, only a demonstration fast reactor in 2017, none in 2018 and none in 2019 as of mid-year (see Figure 12). In other words, since December 2016, China has not started building any new commercial reactors. According to media reports, three construction starts got government approval and could take place later in 2019. While this development would mean a restart of commercial reactor building in China, for the time being, the level remains far below expectations. The five-year plan 2016–2020 had fixed a target of 58 GW operating and 30 GW under construction by 2020. As of mid-2019, China had 45.5 GW operating and 9 GW under construction, far from the original target.

Over the decade 2009–2018, construction began on 71 reactors in the world (of which five have been cancelled). That is more than in the decade 1999–2008, when work started on 45 units (of which three have been abandoned). With 49 units China holds the lion’s share of the 116 building starts over the past two decades (see Figure 12).

In addition, past experience shows that simply having an order for a reactor, or even having a nuclear plant at an advanced stage of construction, is no guarantee of ultimate grid connection and power production. The abandonment of the two V.C. Summer units at the end of July 2017 after four years of construction and following multi-billion-dollar investment is only the latest example in a long list of failed nuclear power plant projects.

Sources: WNISR, with IAEA-PRIS, 2019

French Alternative Energies & Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) statistics through 2002 indicate 253 “cancelled orders” in 31 countries, many of them at an advanced construction stage. The United States alone accounted for 138 of these order cancellations.

Of the 766 reactor constructions launched since 1951, at least 94 units—12 percent or one in eight—in 20 countries had been abandoned as of 1 July 2019. The past decade shows an abandoning rate of one-in-fourteen—as five in 71 building sites officially started during that period were later given up at various stages of advancement (see also Figure 13).

Close to three-quarters (66 units) of all cancelled projects were in four countries alone—the U.S. (42), Russia (12), Germany and Ukraine (six each). Some units were actually 100 percent completed—including Kalkar in Germany and Zwentendorf in Austria—before the decision was taken not to operate them.

Sources: WNISR, with IAEA-PRIS, 2019

Note: This graph only includes constructions that had officially started with the concreting of the base slab of the reactor building.

Operating Age

In the absence of significant new-build and grid connection over many years, the average age (from grid connection) of operating nuclear power plants has been increasing steadily and at mid-2019, for the first time, is exceeding 30 years (30.1 years), up from 29.9 a year ago (see Figure 14). A total of 272 reactors, two-thirds of the world fleet, have operated for 31 or more years, including 80 (19 percent) reaching 41 years or more.

Sources: WNISR, with IAEA-PRIS, 2019

Some nuclear utilities envisage average reactor lifetimes of beyond 40 years up to 60 and even 80 years. In the United States, reactors are initially licensed to operate for 40 years, but nuclear operators can request a license renewal from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for an additional 20 years.

As of 4 May 2018, 85 of the then 99 operating U.S. units had received an extension, with another four applications for five reactors under NRC review. Since WNISR2018, four license renewals for five reactors were granted, one expected submission (Perry-1) was cancelled, two units with renewed licenses were closed, and two additional applications for three reactors are expected in 2021–22.

In the U.S., only four of the 36 units—one in nine—that have been closed had reached 40 years on the grid—Vermont Yankee was closed in December 2014 at the age of 42; Fort Calhoun in October 2016 after 43 years of operation; Oyster Creek, the oldest U.S. reactor, in September 2018 at 49 years; and Pilgrim in May 2019 at 47 years. All four had obtained licenses to operate up to 60 years but were closed mainly for economic reasons. In other words, at least a quarter of the reactors connected to the grid in the U.S. never reached their initial design lifetime of 40 years. On the other hand, of the 97 currently operating plants, 46 units have operated for 41 years or more; thus, half of the units with license renewals have already entered the life extension period, and that share is growing rapidly with the mid-2019 mean age of the U.S. operational fleet at 38.9 years (see United States Focus).

Many countries have no specific time limits on operating licenses. In France, where the country’s first operating Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) started up in 1977, reactors must undergo in-depth inspection and testing every decade against reinforced safety requirements. The French reactors have operated for 34.4 years on average, and most of them have completed the process with the French Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) evaluating each reactor allowing them to operate for up to 40 years, which is the limit of their initial design age. However, the ASN assessments are years behind schedule. For economic reasons, the French utility Électricité de France (EDF) clearly prioritizes lifetime extension to 50 years over large-scale new-build. EDF’s approach to lifetime extension is still under review by ASN’s Technical Support Organization. ASN plans to provide its opinion on the general assessment outline by 2020. This is particularly critical for Tricastin-1, the first unit to undergo the fourth decennial review scheduled to begin in 2019. In addition, lifetime extension beyond 40 years requires site-specific public inquiries in France.

Recently commissioned reactors and the ones under construction in South Korea do or will have a 60-year operating license from the start. EDF will certainly also aim for a 60-year license for its Hinkley Point C units in the U.K.

In assessing the likelihood of reactors being able to operate for 50 or 60 years, it is useful to compare the age distribution of reactors that are currently operating with those that have already closed (see Figure 14 and Figure 15). The age structure of the 181 units already closed (eight more than one year ago) completes the picture. In total, 66 of these units operated for 31 years or more, and of those, 24 reactors operated for 41 years or more. Many units of the first-generation designs only operated for a few years. Considering that the average age of the

Sources: WNISR, with IAEA-PRIS, 2019

closed units is 25.8 years, plans to stretch the operational lifetime of large numbers of units to 40 years and far beyond seemed rather optimistic.

To be sure, the operating time prior to closure has clearly increased continuously. But while the average age of reactors closed in the world in a given year got close to 40 years, it passed it only twice so far: in 2016, with two reactors shutting down at ages 43 (Fort Calhoun, U.S.) and 45 (Novovoronezh, Russia) respectively and in 2018 with Oyster Creek, the oldest U.S. reactor closing at 49 years, as well as Leningrad-1 at 45 and Bilibino at 44 in Russia (see Figure 16).

Sources: WNISR, with IAEA-PRIS, 2019

As a result of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, questions have been raised about the wisdom of operating older reactors. The Fukushima Daiichi units (1 to 4) were connected to the grid between 1971 and 1974. The license for unit 1 had been extended for another 10 years in February 2011, a month before the catastrophe began. Four days after the accidents in Japan, the German government ordered the closure of eight reactors that had started up before 1981, two of which were already closed at the time and never restarted. The sole selection criterion was operational age. Other countries did not adopt the same approach, but it is clear that the 3/11 events had an impact on previously assumed extended lifetimes in other countries as well, including in Belgium, Switzerland and Taiwan. Some of the main nuclear countries closed their respective oldest unit long before age 50, including Germany at age 33, South Korea at 40, Sweden at 46 and the U.S. at 49. France has scheduled to close its two oldest units in spring 2020 at age 43.

Lifetime Projections

Many countries continue to implement or prepare for lifetime extensions. As in previous years, WNISR has therefore created two lifetime projections. A first scenario (40-Year Lifetime Projection, see Figure 17), assumes a general lifetime of 40 years for worldwide operating reactors—not including reactors in Long-Term Outage (LTO). The 40-year number corresponds to the design lifetimes of most operating reactors. Some countries have legislation or policy (Belgium, South Korea, Taiwan) in place that limit operating lifetime to for all or part of the fleet to 40 or 50 years.

For the 85 reactors that have passed the 40-year lifetime, we assume they will operate to the end of their licensed, extended operating time.

A second scenario (Plant Life Extension or PLEX Projection, see Figure 18) takes into account all already-authorized lifetime extensions.

Sources: Various sources, compiled by WNISR, 2019

Notes pertaining to Figures 17–19:

The number of startups in 2019 includes two reactors in LTO that were restarted during the first half-year 2019. Restart and closure of 28 reactors in LTO as of 1 July 2019 are not represented here.

The 60-year license for six APR1400 reactors in South Korea, of which two, Shin-Kori-3 & -4, are already in operation, and four under construction, is not represented here. The Figures do not take into account either the expected closure at age 30 of the three remaining Wolsong reactors (see South Korea Focus, Table 6).

The Figures take into account “early retirements” of 10 reactors, while some of them are likely to be cancelled (see United States Focus, Table 8) and others might be added.

In the case of French reactors that have reached 40 years of operation prior to 2019, we use the limit date for their 4th periodic safety review (visite décennale) as closing date in the 40-year projection. For those that will reach 40 years of operation in 2019 or 2020, the date of their 4th periodic safety review is used in the PLEX Projection.

The lifetime projections allow for an evaluation of the number of plants and respective power generating capacity that would have to come online over the next decades to offset closures and simply maintain the same number of operating plants and capacity. With all units under construction scheduled to have started up, installed nuclear capacity would still decrease by 9.5 GW by 2020. In total, 14 additional reactors (compared to the end of 2018 status) would have to be started up or restarted prior to the end of 2020 in order to maintain the status quo of operating units. Compared to the situation in 2014, the number of additional units necessary to break even by 2020 shrank by 16. In fact, construction started on 25 units between 2014 and mid-2019, and Japan restarted nine reactors (none were operating in 2014). The additional capacity needed to maintain the status quo by 2020 increased though by 2 GW.

In the following decade to 2030, 188 additional new reactors (165.5 GW) would have to be connected to the grid to maintain the status quo, 3.2 times the rate achieved over the past decade (59 startups between 2009 and 2018). The situation is identical to 2014, when the corresponding projections for 2021–2030 indicated a need for an equal number of additional reactors, though with a higher total capacity of 178 GW.

The potential stabilization of the situation by 2020 will depend on the number of Japanese and other reactors currently in LTO coming back online, as it is technically impossible to start and complete construction of any additional new plant in a year.

As a result, the number of reactors in operation will probably more or less stagnate at best, unless—beyond restarts—lifetime extensions far beyond 40 years become widespread. Such generalized lifetime extensions are the objective of the nuclear power industry, and, especially in the U.S., there are numerous more or less successful attempts to obtain subsidies for uneconomic nuclear plants (see detailed analysis in United States Focus).

Sources: Various sources, compiled by WNISR, 2019

Developments in Asia, and particularly in China, do not fundamentally change the global picture. Reported figures for China’s 2020 target for installed nuclear capacity have fluctuated between 40 GW and 120 GW in the past. The freezes of construction initiation for almost two years and of new siting authorizations for four years have significantly reduced Chinese ambitions.

Every year, we also model a scenario in which all currently licensed lifetime extensions and license renewals (mainly in the United States) are maintained and all construction sites are completed. For all other units, we have maintained a 40-year lifetime projection, unless a firm earlier or later closure date has been announced. By 2020, the net number of operating reactors would increase by five units, and the installed capacity would grow by 7 GW.

In the following decade to 2030, another 153 new reactors (125 GW) would have to start up to replace closures. The PLEX-Projection would still mean, in the coming decade, a need to multiply the number of units built over the past decade by 2.6 (see Figure 17, Figure 18, and the cumulated effect in Figure 19). In the meantime, construction starts have been on a declining trend for a decade.

Sources: WNISR, with IAEA-PRIS, 2019

Note: All reactors in LTO are shown until they reach age 40, unless they have a license to operate to 60 years, (see Table 27).

Focus Countries

The following chapter provides an in-depth assessment of ten countries: Belgium, China, France, Finland, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, United Kingdom (U.K.) and the United States (U.S.). They represent about two thirds of the global reactor fleet (65 percent of the units and 73 percent of the installed capacity) and six of the world’s ten largest nuclear power producers. For other countries’ details, see Annex 1.

Unless otherwise noted, data on the numbers of reactors operating and under construction and their capacity (as of mid-2019) and nuclear’s share in electricity generation are from the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Power Reactor Information System (PRIS) online database. Historical maximum figures indicate the year that the nuclear share in the power generation of a given country was the highest since 1986, the year of the Chernobyl disaster. Unless otherwise noted, the load factor figures are from Nuclear Engineering International (NEI).

Belgium Focus





Operating 7



Closed 1 Number of Reactors

39.3 Mean Age of Reactor Fleet

39% Decrease Nuclear Share in Electricity Production

49 Annual Load Factor

Belgium operates seven pressurized-water reactors that have generated 27.3 TWh in 2018, almost one-third less than the 40.2 TWh in 2017 and a maximum of 46.7 TWh in 1999. Nuclear power contributed 34 percent of Belgium’s electricity in 2018, while the maximum was almost double with 67.2 percent in 1986.

Due to continuous technical issues and extended outages, the average load factor of the Belgian fleet plunged to 48.6 percent in 2018, the second lowest in the world behind Argentina. The average age of the Belgian fleet is 39.3 years. On average, the seven Belgian units were down half of the year (see details hereafter) and in October 2018 power prices reached record levels (€205/MWh or US$231/MWh). The “Belgian nuclear crisis” is the title of an Argus White Paper describing that the lack of power from nuclear reactors led not only to the need for coordinated solidarity by neighboring countries to help Belgium with power exports through the winter, but also to strategic reinforcement of energy cooperation, in particular with Germany.

Engie-Electrabel, which operates all of the Belgian reactors, stated in January 2019 that 4 GW of nuclear capacity (Doel-3 and -4, Tihange-2 and -3) will be available in winter 2019–20, and thus the situation should be less constrained.

The nuclear capacity constraints in the winter 2018–19 were also seen as a test case, as legally the country is bound to a nuclear phase-out target of 2025. In January 2003, legislation was passed that requires the closure of all of Belgium’s nuclear plants after 40 years of operation, so based on their startup dates, plants would be closed progressively between 2015 and 2025 (see Table 3). Practically, however, after lifetime extension to 50 years was granted for three reactors, five of the seven reactors would go offline in the single year of 2025. This represents a challenging policy goal.

In November 2017, the Belgian transmission system operator Elia published a study urging the construction of “at least 3.6 GW of new-build adjustable (thermal) capacity” to “cope with the shock of the nuclear exit in 2025”. The Belgian government confirmed the nuclear phase-out date, when, on 30 March 2018, it presented the Federal Energy Strategy.

Table 3 | Belgian Nuclear Fleet (as of 1 July 2019)

Reactor Net Capacity

(MW) Grid Connection Operating Age

(as of 1 July 2019) End of License

(Latest Closure Date) Load Factor 2018 Lifetime Doel-1 433 28/08/1974 44.8 10-year lifetime extension to 15 February 2025 30.9 83 Doel-2 433 21/08/1975 43.9 10-year lifetime extension to 1 December 2025 38.9 82.2 Doel-3 1 006 23/06/1982 37.0 1 October 2022 42.6 78.0 Doel-4 1 038 08/04/1985 34.2 1 July 2025 60.6 82.8 Tihange-1 962 07/03/1975 44.3 10-year lifetime extension to 1 October 2025 90.6 81.1 Tihange-2 1 008 13/10/1982 36.7 1 February 2023 62 80.9 Tihange-3 1 038 15/06/1985 34.0 1 September 2025 24.4 86.0

Sources: WNISR, NEI, 2019; Belgian Law of 28 June 2015; Electrabel/GDF-Suez, 2015

Hydrogen Crack Indications and Legal Issues

In summer 2012, the operator identified an unprecedented number of hydrogen-induced crack indications in the pressure vessels of Doel-3 and Tihange-2, with respectively over 8,000 and 2,000—which later increased to over 13,000 and over 3,000 respectively—previously undetected defects. In spite of widespread concerns, and although no failsafe explanation about the negative initial fracture-toughness test results was given, on 17 November 2015, the Federal Agency for Nuclear Control (FANC) authorized the restart of Doel-3 and Tihange-2 for the second time after the original discovery of the defaults (see previous WNISR editions for details).

The Belgian government did not wait for the outcome of the Doel-3/Tihange-2 issue and decided in March 2015 to draft legislation to extend the lifetime of Doel-1 and Doel-2 by ten years to 2025. The law went into effect on 6 July 2015. The government signed an agreement with Electrabel on 30 November 2015 that stipulates that the operator will invest €700 million (US$741.2 million) into upgrading of the two units and an annual fee of €20 million (US$21.2 million), which will be paid into the national Energy Transition Fund, set up by the law of 28 June 2015. On 22 December 2015, FANC authorized the lifetime extension and restart of Doel-1 and -2.

On 6 January 2016, two Belgian NGOs filed a complaint against the 28 June 2015 law with the Belgian Constitutional Court, arguing in particular that the lifetime extension had been authorized without a legally binding public enquiry. In a 22 June 2017 pre-ruling decision, the Court addressed a series of questions to the European Court of Justice (ECJ), in particular concerning the interpretation of the Espoo and Aarhus Conventions, as well as the European legislation. On 29 November 2018, the ECJ’s Advocate General presented its advice on the request of the Belgian Constitutional Court concerning the applicability of the EU-Aarhus/Espoo with regards to the Plant Life Extension or PLEX of Doel-1 and -2 and Tihange-1. In her advice, the Advocate General clearly states that

the definition of ‘project’ under Article 1(2)(a) of Directive 2011/92 [Environmental Impact Assessment Directive] includes the extension by 10 years of the period of industrial production of electricity by a nuclear power station

and that

public participation must take place in accordance with Article 6(4) of Directive 2011/92 as early as possible, when all options are open, that is to say, before the decision on the extension is taken.

The ECJ is not bound by, but generally follows, the advice of the Advocate General; however, so far, the ECJ did not send a formal opinion to the Belgian Constitutional Court. Should the ECJ rule in accordance with the Advocate General’s recommendations, this could have major implications also for past or planned lifetime extensions in other countries.

Already in November 2015, Greenpeace Belgium had filed a case at the State Council (Conseil d’État) on similar grounds. As of mid 2019, both cases are still pending.

In May 2017, FANC announced that a series of ultrasonic inspections on the pressure vessel of Tihange-2 did not show any evolution of the hydrogen flakes, nor any new defects. On the basis of these results, FANC authorized the restart of the reactor. FANC later admitted that over 300 additional flaw indications at Doel-3 and 70 additional flaw indications at Tihange-2 exceeded the recording threshold for the first time during re-inspections carried out in 2016 and 2017 respectively. However, FANC concluded that the results were due to evolving complex inspection techniques rather than physical changes.

The technical assessment of the safety implications of the flaw indications remains the subject of intense controversy. Several independent safety analysis reports are highly critical of the restart authorizations. In April 2018, the International Nuclear Risk Assessment Group (INRAG) stated on Tihange-2 that “the risk of failure of the reactor pressure vessel is not practically excluded” and requested that “the reactor must therefore be temporarily shut down”. INRAG is currently in contact with the German government about the safety assessment of Tihange-2, which will likely turn into an expert opinion exchange in the near future.

A complaint was filed at the Belgian State Council against the restart of Tihange-2 by the City Region (Städteregion) Aachen cities in February 