The first commercial nuclear power stations started operation in the 1950s. There are now 443 commercial nuclear power reactors operating in 31 countries, with over 369,000 MWe of total capacity and another 27 nuclear reactors were under construction. . They supply 16% of the world's electricity, as base-load power, and their efficiency is increasing. Fifty-six countries operate a total of 284 research reactors reactors and a further 220 reactors power ships and submarines.

Of the 443 nuclear reactors in the world, 205 are in Europe, including Russia. There are 148 nuclear reactors in the 25-nation European Union. The average age of the world's reactors is 22 years. There are 122 reactor blocks in the United States and Canada, six in South America, 108 in Asia and two in Africa. Of the 14 EU states with nuclear reactors, France is at the top with 59 currently in operation. Britain operates 23 nuclear reactors, Germany 17, Sweden 10, Spain has nine, Belgium seven, Slovakia and the Czech Republic have six each, and Hungary and Finland have four each. Lithuania, the Netherlands and Slovenia each have one nuclear reactor in operation. EU candidates Bulgaria (with four reactors) and Romania (with one) also generate a large part of their electricity with nuclear power.

France generates 78.1% of its electricity from nuclear power. Lithuanian nuclear power generates 72.1% of its electricity. Nuclear power generates 55.2% of electricity in Slovakia, and 55.1% in Belgium. China uses atomic energy to generate 2.2% of its electricity requirements.

URANIUM AND NUCLEAR ENGERY FACTSHEET
The public policy issues of clean energy from uranium

How natural?
Uranium is a natural part of many rocks and is barely radioactive - very much less so than many of the other elements usually found with it. However, it provides the main heat sources inside the Earth, causing convection and continental drift.

The first nuclear reactors started up and operated naturally about 2000 million years ago, in a uranium ore body, in west Africa¹.

How sufficient and sustainable?
Uranium supplies, using currently proven but not yet widely used reactor technology, are sufficient for hundreds of years, even at much increased levels of use.

When uranium is used to generate electricity it produces no pollution or greenhouse gases.

What potential?
To produce all today's base load power² worldwide would require about 1,700 nuclear reactors. Double this in 2030!

Nuclear energy is widely considered the most promising means of making hydrogen, initially by electrolysis, but later by thermochemical means.

If in 2050 nuclear reactors also produce most of the world's hydrogen which by then is the main transport fuel, consider over 8,000 reactors for electricity, plus 1,300 units for the hydrogen: say 9,500 total³ worldwide.

¹ Due to natural changes in the uranium, this can no longer happen.
² Assuming base load 75 per cent of total, and using 1,000 Mwe units.
³ 1,000 Mwe units.

Greenhouse significance?
Nuclear energy emits no carbon dioxide, and worldwide it avoids the emission of about 2.5 billion tonnes of CO₂ per year (relative to coal). Other electricity generation emits over 7 billion tonnes per year⁵. Every 22 tonnes of uranium (26 tonnes U₃O₈) used for generating electricity saves about one million tonnes of CO2 relative to coal6.

A carbon value or tax of $37 per tonne C on black coal or $29 per tonne C on brown coal would lift electricity generation costs from those sources by one cent per kWh. (= taxes of $10/t CO2).

Safety?
Nuclear power has an excellent and arguably unmatched safety record, considering 11,500 reactor years of nuclear power generation. Some early Russian reactors remain a concern.

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