Global nuclear energy production fell in 2011 due to the disaster that befell Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, a weaker demand for electricity, and increasing production costs, according to a report released on Tuesday.
The Worldwatch Institute, an environmental research group based in Washington, D.C., commissioned the annual report.
Nuclear generation capacity—the potential for nuclear power plants to generate power—rose to record levels in 2010, only to tumble this year, the report said. Power generation from existing plants fell to 366.5 gigawatts (GW) by the end of October from 375.5 GW in all of 2010. In 2009 the world’s capacity was 370.9 GW.
Germany alone took 8 GW of nuclear capacity offline in 2011.
“Much of the decline in installed capacity is the result of halted reactor construction around the world,” Worldwatch stated. “Although construction on 16 new reactors began in 2010—the highest number in over two decades—that number fell to just 2 in 2011, with India and Pakistan each starting construction on a plant.”
