Nuclear fuels

Nuclear power today and outlook until 2030

Civilian use of nuclear power started with the opening of the first nuclear reactor in 1957 in the United Kingdom, generating approximately 50 MWel in its first year. This picture has changed considerably since the beginning of the 1970s. In 2006, nuclear power contributed around 2700 TWh to 16% of global electricity generation (6% of primary energy use) (WNA, 2007). Worldwide, some 440 nuclear power plants are in operation in 30 countries, using the energy released by nuclear fission of the natural uranium radionuclide 235U. (All commercial nuclear plants today use uranium as fuel (Olah et al., 2006).) The total installed nuclear-generation capacity amounts to around 370 GWel.

Three countries, namely the USA (104 plants), France (59 plants) and Japan, account for approximately 58% of the worldwide generation capacity, followed by Germany and the Russian Federation. These three countries also dominated the historical development of nuclear power expansion (see Fig. 4.1). The three countries with the highest nuclear energy share in their electricity mix today are France, with around 75%, followed by Lithuania, with 70%, and Slovakia, with 55%. While nuclear power contributes some 20% to power generation in the United States, the share in the EU25 is around 36%.

The historic growth of nuclear power can be divided into three broad periods: early growth (1957–1973), major expansion (1973–1990), and slow growth (1990 until today) (NEA/IAEA, 2006a).