nuclear power

nuclear power, Schematic diagram of a nuclear power plant using a pressurized-water reactor.Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.electricity generated by power plants that derive their heat from fission in a nuclear reactor. Except for the reactor, which plays the role of a boiler in a fossil-fuel power plant, a nuclear power plant is similar to a large coal-fired power plant, with pumps, valves, steam generators, turbines, electric generators, condensers, and associated equipment.

World nuclear power

Nuclear power provides almost 15 percent of the world’s electricity. The first nuclear power plants, which were small demonstration facilities, were built in the 1960s. These prototypes provided “proof-of-concept” and laid the groundwork for the development of the higher-power reactors that followed.

The nuclear power industry went through a period of remarkable growth until about 1990, when the portion of electricity generated by nuclear power reached a high of 17 percent. That percentage remained stable through the 1990s and began to decline slowly around the turn of the 21st century, primarily because of the fact that total electricity generation grew faster than electricity from nuclear power while other sources of energy (particularly coal and natural gas) were able to grow more quickly to meet the rising demand. This trend appears likely to continue well into the 21st century. The Energy Information Administration (EIA), a statistical arm of the U.S. Department of Energy, has projected that world electricity generation between 2005 and 2035 will roughly double (from more than 15,000 terawatt-hours to 35,000 terawatt-hours) and that generation from all energy sources except petroleum will continue to grow.

In 2012 more than 400 nuclear reactors were in operation in 30 countries around the world, and more than 60 were under construction. The United States has the largest nuclear power industry, with more than 100 reactors; it is followed by France, which has more than 50. Of the top 15 electricity-producing countries in the world, all but two, Italy and Australia, utilize nuclear power to generate some of their electricity. The overwhelming majority of nuclear reactor generating capacity is concentrated in North America, Europe, and Asia. The early period of the nuclear power industry was dominated by North America (the United States and Canada), but in the 1980s that lead was overtaken by Europe. The EIA projects that Asia will have the largest nuclear capacity by 2035, mainly because of an ambitious building program in China.

A typical nuclear power plant has a generating capacity of approximately one gigawatt (GW; one billion watts) of electricity. At this capacity, a power plant that operates about 90 percent of the time (the U.S. industry average) will generate about eight terawatt-hours of electricity per year. The predominant types of power reactors are pressurized water reactors (PWRs) and boiling water reactors (BWRs), both of which are categorized as light water reactors (LWRs) because they use ordinary (light) water as a moderator and coolant. LWRs make up more than 80 percent of the world’s nuclear reactors, and more than three-quarters of the LWRs are PWRs.

Issues affecting nuclear power

Countries may have a number of motives for deploying nuclear power plants, including a lack of indigenous energy resources, a desire for energy independence, and a goal to limit greenhouse gas emissions by using a carbon-free source of electricity. The benefits of applying nuclear power to these needs are substantial, but they are tempered by a number of issues that need to be considered, including the safety of nuclear reactors, their cost, the disposal of radioactive waste, and a potential for the nuclear fuel cycle to be diverted to the development of nuclear weapons. All of these concerns are discussed below.


The safety of nuclear reactors has become paramount since the Fukushima accident of 2011. The lessons learned from that disaster included the need to (1) adopt risk-informed regulation, (2) strengthen management systems so that decisions made in the event of a severe accident are based on safety and not cost or political repercussions, (3) periodically assess new information on risks posed by natural hazards such as earthquakes and associated tsunamis, and (4) take steps to mitigate the possible consequences of a station blackout.

The four reactors involved in the Fukushima accident were first-generation BWRs designed in the 1960s. Newer Generation III designs, on the other hand, incorporate improved safety systems and rely more on so-called passive safety designs (i.e., directing cooling water by gravity rather than moving it by pumps) in order to keep the plants safe in the event of a severe accident or station blackout. For instance, in the Westinghouse AP1000 design, residual heat would be removed from the reactor by water circulating under the influence of gravity from reservoirs located inside the reactor’s containment structure. Active and passive safety systems are incorporated into the European Pressurized Water Reactor (EPR) as well.

Traditionally, enhanced safety systems have resulted in higher construction costs, but passive safety designs, by requiring the installation of far fewer pumps, valves, and associated piping, may actually yield a cost saving.


A convenient economic measure used in the power industry is known as the levelized cost of electricity, or LCOE, which is the cost of generating one kilowatt-hour (kWh) of electricity averaged over the lifetime of the power plant. The LCOE is also known as the “busbar cost,” as it represents the cost of the electricity up to the power plant’s busbar, a conducting apparatus that links the plant’s generators and other components to the distribution and transmission equipment that delivers the electricity to the consumer.

The busbar cost of a power plant is determined by 1) capital costs of construction, including finance costs, 2) fuel costs, 3) operation and maintenance (O&M) costs, and 4) decommissioning and waste-disposal costs. For nuclear power plants, busbar costs are dominated by capital costs, which can make up more than 70 percent of the LCOE. Fuel costs, on the other hand, are a relatively small factor in a nuclear plant’s LCOE (less than 20 percent). As a result, the cost of electricity from a nuclear plant is very sensitive to construction costs and interest rates but relatively insensitive to the price of uranium. Indeed, the fuel costs for coal-fired plants tend to be substantially greater than those for nuclear plants. Even though fuel for a nuclear reactor has to be fabricated, the cost of nuclear fuel is substantially less than the cost of fossil fuel per kilowatt-hour of electricity generated. This fuel cost advantage is due to the enormous energy content of each unit of nuclear fuel compared to fossil fuel.

The O&M costs for nuclear plants tend to be higher than those for fossil-fuel plants because of the complexity of a nuclear plant and the regulatory issues that arise during the plant’s operation. Costs for decommissioning and waste disposal are included in fees charged by electrical utilities. In the United States, nuclear-generated electricity was assessed a fee of $0.001 per kilowatt-hour to pay for a permanent repository of high-level nuclear waste. This seemingly modest fee yielded about $750 million per year for the Nuclear Waste Fund.

At the beginning of the 21st century, electricity from nuclear plants typically cost less than electricity from coal-fired plants, but this formula may not apply to the newer generation of nuclear power plants, given the sensitivity of busbar costs to construction costs and interest rates. Another major uncertainty is the possibility of carbon taxes or stricter regulations on carbon dioxide emissions. These measures would almost certainly raise the operating costs of coal plants and thus make nuclear power more competitive.

Radioactive-waste disposal

Spent nuclear reactor fuel and the waste stream generated by fuel reprocessing contain radioactive materials and must be conditioned for permanent disposal. The amount of waste coming out of the nuclear fuel cycle is very small compared with the amount of waste generated by fossil fuel plants. However, nuclear waste is highly radioactive (hence its designation as high-level waste, or HLW), which makes it very dangerous to the public and the environment. Extreme care must be taken to ensure that it is stored safely and securely, preferably deep underground in permanent geologic repositories.

Despite years of research into the science and technology of geologic disposal, no permanent disposal site is in use anywhere in the world. In the last decades of the 20th century, the United States made preparations for constructing a repository for commercial HLW beneath Yucca Mountain, Nevada, but by the turn of the 21st century, this facility had been delayed by legal challenges and political decisions. Pending construction of a long-term repository, U.S. utilities have been storing HLW in so-called dry casks aboveground. Some other countries using nuclear power, such as Finland, Sweden, and France, have made more progress and expect to have HLW repositories operational in the period 2020–25.


The claim has long been made that the development and expansion of commercial nuclear power led to nuclear weapons proliferation, because elements of the nuclear fuel cycle (including uranium enrichment and spent-fuel reprocessing) can also serve as pathways to weapons development. However, the history of nuclear weapons development does not support the notion of a necessary connection between weapons proliferation and commercial nuclear power.

The first pathway to proliferation, uranium enrichment, can lead to a nuclear weapon based on highly enriched uranium (see nuclear weapon: Principles of atomic (fission) weapons). It is considered relatively straightforward for a country to fabricate a weapon with highly enriched uranium, but the impediment historically has been the difficulty of the enrichment process. Since nuclear reactor fuel for LWRs is only slightly enriched (less than 5 percent of the fissile isotope uranium-235) and weapons need a minimum of 20 percent enriched uranium, commercial nuclear power is not a viable pathway to obtaining highly enriched uranium.

The second pathway to proliferation, reprocessing, results in the separation of plutonium from the highly radioactive spent fuel. The plutonium can then be used in a nuclear weapon. However, reprocessing is heavily guarded in those countries where it is conducted, making commercial reprocessing an unlikely pathway for proliferation. Also, it is considered more difficult to construct a weapon with plutonium versus highly enriched uranium.

More than 20 countries have developed nuclear power industries without building nuclear weapons. On the other hand, countries that have built and tested nuclear weapons have followed other paths than purchasing commercial nuclear reactors, reprocessing the spent fuel, and obtaining plutonium. Some have built facilities for the express purpose of enriching uranium; some have built plutonium production reactors; and some have surreptitiously diverted research reactors to the production of plutonium. All these pathways to nuclear proliferation have been more effective, less expensive, and easier to hide from prying eyes than the commercial nuclear power route. Nevertheless, nuclear proliferation remains a highly sensitive issue, and any country that wishes to launch a commercial nuclear power industry will necessarily draw the close attention of oversight bodies such as the International Atomic Energy Agency.