【文章內(nèi)容簡介】 ar reactors operating in the world, nine less thanin 2002. There are 52 units listed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as“under construction”. At the peak of the nuclear industry39。s growth phase in 1979 therewere 233 reactors being built concurrently. Even at the end of 1987, there were still120 reactors in process. Much has changed. For the first time since mercial use ofnuclear energy began in the middle of the 1950s no new nuclear plant was connected to thegrid in 2008. In fact, no startup has been reported for the past two years, since Cernavoda2was connected to the grid on 7 August 2007, after 24 years of construction.In 1989 a total of 177 nuclear reactors had been operated in what are now the 27 EUMember States, but as of 1st August 2009 only 144 units were in operation. Today theworldwide operating reactors total 370,000 megawatts (370 GW), about 1,600 MW1 lessthan one year ago.In 2007 nuclear power plants generated about 2,600 TWh2 and provided 14% of theworld39。s electricity. After an unprecedented drop in electricity generation of 2% in 2007,nuclear power plants39。 output lost another half percentage point in 2008. Nuclear powerprovided % of the mercial primary energy production and about 2% of the finalenergy in the world, and has trended downwards for several years.Twentyseven of the 31 countries operating nuclear power plants maintained (23) ordecreased (4) their share of nuclear power within the electricity mix in 2008 relative to2007. Four countries (Czech Republic, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia) increased theirshare.The average age of the operating nuclear power plants in the world is 25 years. Somenuclear utilities envisage reactor lifetimes of 40 years or more. Considering the fact thatthe average age of all 123 units that have already been closed is about 22 years, thedoubling of the operational lifetime seems rather optimistic. However, we have assumed anaverage lifetime of 40 years for all operating and inconstruction reactors in ourcalculations of how many plants would be shut down year by year. The exercise makespossible an evaluation of the minimum number of plants that would have to e onlineover the next decades in order to maintain the same number of operating plants.In addition to the 52 units currently under construction3, 42 reactors (16,000 MW)4 wouldhave to be planned, built and started up by 2015 – one every month and a half – and anadditional 192 units (170,000 MW) over the following 10year period – one every 19 days.?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????1 The equivalent of an EPR (European Pressurized Water Reactor), as under construction in Finland andFrance.2Terawatthours or billion kWh.3In contrast to earlier scenarios, we have considered that all units currently listed by the IAEA as “underconstruction” will be connected to the grid by 2016.M.?Schneider,?S.?Thomas,?A.?Froggatt,?D.?Koplow??????????????????World?Nuclear?Industry?Status?Report?2009?????????5?In a new “PLEX5 Scenario” we have modeled the situation taking into account not only thestartup of all units currently under construction, but also the license renewal as ofAugust 2009 of 54 US and some other nuclear reactors6. Even with license renewals, thenumber of units in operation would never again reach the historical peak of 444 in 2002.By 2015, the number of operating units in the world would be 10 short of the current level,though the installed capacity would increase by 9,600 MW. In the following decade anadditional 174 reactors or about 152,000 MW would still have to be replaced to break evenwith the current nuclear fleet in the world.Even if Finland and France each builds a reactor or two, China goes for an additional20 plants and Japan, Korea or Eastern Europe add a few units, the overall worldwide trendwill most likely be downwards over the next two decades. With extremely long lead timesof 10 years and more, it will be practically impossible to maintain, let alone increase thenumber of operating nuclear power plants over the next 20 years. The one exception to thisoute would be if operating lifetimes could be substantially increased beyond 40 yearson average。 there is currently no basis for such an assumption.For practically all of the potential nuclear newers, it remains unlikely that fissionpower programs can be implemented any time soon within the required technical, political,economic framework. None of the potential new nuclear countries has proper nuclearregulations, an independent regulator, domestic maintenance capacity, and the skilledworkforce in place to run a nuclear plant. It might take at least 15 years to build up thenecessary regulatory framework in countries that are starting from scratch.Furthermore, few countries have sufficient grid capacity to absorb the output of a largenuclear plant, an oftenoverlooked constraint. This means that the economic challenge tofinancing a nuclear plant would be exacerbated by the very large ancillary investmentsrequired in the distribution network.Countries with a grid size and quality that could apparently cope with a large nuclear plantin the short and medium term encounter an array of other significant barriers. Theseinclude a hostile or passive government (Australia, Norway, Malaysia, Thailand)。generally hostile public opinion (Italy, Turkey)。 international nonproliferation concerns(Egypt, Israel)。 major economic concerns (Poland)。 a hostile environment due toearthquake and volcanic risks (Indonesia)。 and a lack of all necessary infrastructure(Venezuela). Many countries face several of these barriers at the same time.Lack of a trained workforce and massive loss of petence are probably the mostdifficult challenges for proponents of nuclear expansion to overe. Even France, thecountry with perhaps the strongest base of civilian nuclear peten