Nuclear power plants operate in 32 countries and generate about a tenth of the world's electricity.[1] Most are in Europe, North America and East Asia.The United States is the largest producer of nuclear power, while France has the largest share of electricity generated by nuclear power, at about 70%.[2]
Some countries operated nuclear reactors in the past but have no operating nuclear power plants at present. Among them, Italy closed all of its nuclear stations by 1990 and nuclear power has since been discontinued because of the 1987 referendums.Kazakhstan phased out nuclear power in 1999 but is planning to reintroduce it possibly by 2035.[3] Germany operated nuclear plants since 1960 until the completion of its phaseout policy in 2023. Austria (Zwentendorf Nuclear Power Plant) and the Philippines (Bataan Nuclear Power Plant) never started to use their first nuclear plants that were completely built.
Sweden and Belgium originally had phase-out policies however they have now moved away from their original plans. The Philippines relaunched their nuclear programme on February 28, 2022 and may try to operate the 1984 mothballed Bataan Plant.[4] [5]
As of 2020, Poland was in advanced planning phase for 1.5 GW and planned to have up to 9 GW by 2040.[6] Hong Kong has no nuclear power plants within its boundary, but imports 80% of the electricity generated from Daya Bay Nuclear Power Station located across the border, in which the power company of the territory holds stake.[7] [8] In 2021, Iraq declared it was planning to build 8 nuclear reactors by 2030 to supply up to 25% electric power in a grid that was suffering from shortages.[9]
See also: List of commercial nuclear reactors.
Of the 32 countries in which nuclear power plants operate, only France, Slovakia, Ukraine and Belgium use them as the source for a majority of the country's electricity supply as of 2021. Other countries have significant amounts of nuclear power generation capacity. By far the largest nuclear electricity producers are the United States with 779,186 GWh of nuclear electricity in 2023, followed by China with 406,484 GWh. As of the end of 2023, 418 reactors with a net capacity of 371,540 MWe were operational, and 59 reactors with net capacity of 61,637 MWe were under construction.[10] Of the reactors under construction, 25 reactors with 26,301 MWe were in China and 7 reactors with a capacity of 5,398 MWe were in India.[11]
| Country | Reactors | Capacity(MW) | Generation(GWh) | %total | Capacityfactor | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| In use | Being built | |||||||
| 403 | 59 | 364,480 | 2,552,067 | 9.11% | 83.9% | |||
| 3 | 1 | 1,641 | 8,963 | 6.3% | 63.1% | |||
| 1 | 0 | 416 | 2,512 | 31.1% | 70.2% | |||
| 0 | 2 | 2,160 | ||||||
| 2 | 0 | 2,220 | 10,997 | 28.6% | 81% | |||
| 6 | 0 | 4,916 | 31,289 | 41.2% | 90.1% | |||
| 2 | 1 | 1,884 | 13,695 | 2.2% | 82.7% | |||
| 2 | 0 | 2,006 | 15,488 | 40.4% | 87.7% | |||
| 19 | 0 | 13,699 | 83,465 | 13.7% | 69.7% | |||
| 55 | 25 | 53,152 | 406,484 | 4.9% | 89.8% | |||
| 6 | 0 | 3,934 | 28,728 | 40.0% | 83.9% | |||
| 0 | 4 | 4,400 | ||||||
| 5 | 0 | 4,394 | 32,759 | 42.0% | 93.9% | |||
| 56 | 1 | 61,370 | 323,773 | 64.8% | 67.3% | |||
| 4 | 0 | 1,916 | 15,092 | 48.8% | 90% | |||
| 19 | 7 | 6,290 | 44,646 | 3.1% | 84.6% | |||
| 1 | 1 | 915 | 6,071 | 1.7% | 75.3% | |||
| 33 | 2 | 31,679 | 77,539 | 5.6% | 29.5% | |||
| 2 | 0 | 1,552 | 12,044 | 4.9% | 90.2% | |||
| 1 | 0 | 482 | 3,771 | 3.4% | 90.1% | |||
| 6 | 1 | 3,262 | 22,383 | 17.4% | 84.5% | |||
| 2 | 0 | 1,300 | 10,312 | 18.9% | 92.5% | |||
| 37 | 4 | 27,727 | 203,957 | 18.4% | 83.1% | |||
| 5 | 1 | 2,308 | 17,005 | 61.3% | 94% | |||
| 1 | 0 | 688 | 5,332 | 36.8% | 87.8% | |||
| 2 | 0 | 1,854 | 8,154 | 4.4% | 62% | |||
| 26 | 2 | 25,825 | 171,640 | 31.5% | 80.2% | |||
| 7 | 0 | 7,123 | 54,371 | 20.3% | 89.8% | |||
| 6 | 0 | 6,944 | 46,648 | 28.6% | 79.8% | |||
| 4 | 0 | 2,973 | 23,404 | 32.4% | 91.1% | |||
| 3 | 0 | 2,859 | 17,154 | 6.9% | 94.1% | |||
| 0 | 4 | 4,456 | ||||||
| 15 | 2 | 13,107 | 81,126 | 55.0% | 71% | |||
| 3 | 1 | 4,011 | 31,206 | 19.7% | 91.2% | |||
| 9 | 2 | 5,883 | 37,278 | 12.5% | 73% | |||
| 93 | 1 | 95,835 | 779,186 | 18.6% | 94.1% | |||