![]() ![]() Considering that the current capacity is only around 51 gigawatts, that might seem ambitious. The most recent target is from March 2022, when the National Energy Administration (NEA) set the target of increasing installed nuclear power capacity to 70 gigawatts by 2025. Nuclear targets, on the other hand, have been declining in ambition, and these are no longer being met. This might well be the case for even the ambitious target of 1,200 gigawatts of solar and wind power by 2030, as laid out in the Nationally Determined Contribution report from October 2021. Targets for wind and solar energy capacity have routinely been met, sometimes more quickly than envisioned. Of missed targetsĬhinese officials have periodically laid out impressive targets for all of these technologies. Together, these two sources contributed roughly 250 percent as much electricity as nuclear plants in 2021. But China is also building just about every other source of power too, including the technologies that will be critical to climate mitigation: wind and solar energy. Despite its breakneck pace of construction, nuclear energy contributed just under 5 percent of electricity generated in 2021. The country started relatively late on building nuclear power plants, but as with many other elements of infrastructure, the country has emerged as the leader in building nuclear plants. These factors limit how fast nuclear power can grow even if some reactors were to be built.Ĭhina’s experience testifies to the stubborn problems of nuclear energy. Nuclear plants also take a long time to build-at least a decade from the start of planning to actually being connected to the electric grid-and they cost a lot to operate. This decline is a result of nuclear power’s inability to compete economically, in turn because of the high and rising cost of building nuclear reactors. ![]() Measured in terms of the share of global electricity generation, nuclear power has come down from a maximum of 17.5 percent in 1996 to barely above 10 percent in 2020. In contrast, the fraction of global electricity generated by what are called modern renewables, namely solar, wind, geothermal, and biomass-based energy, has consistently risen, from 1.2 percent in 1997 to 10.7 percent in 2020. Commissioning of new nuclear power plants peaked in 1984-85, and new nuclear power additions in subsequent years have been a mere fraction of that peak. In the first two decades of this century, 95 reactors were started up around the world while 98 reactors were closed down.Īll of these have resulted in a decline in nuclear energy’s role in providing power. Nuclear power is a technology whose golden age is long over. The impression the news media offers is one of sunny optimism, with glowing accounts of innovative and sophisticated new nuclear reactor designs, often offered up as our only hope for solving the climate crisis. But can it do the same for nuclear power plants, thereby rescuing that technology from declining gently into oblivion?īefore answering that question, I should first explain why I say nuclear power is declining, and explain why that is happening. Over the last quarter century or more, China has repeatedly demonstrated the ability to build infrastructure within budget and on schedule. What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object? This well-known Irresistible Force paradox comes to mind when considering the role that China could play in shaping the future of nuclear energy. ![]()
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