The World Nuclear Industry Status Report - 2021

Nuclear Power Industry

Mycle Schneider released the World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2021 (WNISR2021) in late 2021. It provides an overview of nuclear power plant data, including information on age, operation, production, and construction of reactors. As 2021 is the tenth anniversary of the beginning of the Fukushima disaster in Japan, this year’s report analyzes in more detail the onsite/offsite status, including the issues of contaminated water and waste management, health consequences, cost estimates and legal cases. A dedicated chapter assesses the lasting impacts of the Chernobyl accident in Ukraine 35 years later. Mycle Schneider also produced WNISR2020.

As the world continues to struggle with a global pandemic, record temperatures, wildfires, flooding, and other extreme weather events, WNISR2021 presents a first look at Nuclear Power and Climate Change Resilience including a case study on France. WNISR has reported for years about irregularities, fraud, counterfeiting, corruption, and other criminal activities in the nuclear sector. WNISR2021 has, for the first time, dedicated an entire chapter to Nuclear Power and Criminal Energy documenting multiple criminal activities associated with nuclear power in many countries.

The WNISR assesses the status of new-build programs in the 33 nuclear countries (as of mid-2021) as well as in potential newcomer countries. WNISR2021 includes sections on ten Focus Countries representing about two-thirds of the global fleet and four of the five largest nuclear power producers. The Decommissioning Status Report 2021 provides an overview of the current state of nuclear reactors that have been permanently closed. The chapter on
Nuclear Power vs. Renewable Energy Deployment offers comparative data on investment, capacity, and generation from nuclear, wind and solar energy, as well as other renewables around the world. Finally, Annex 1 presents overviews of nuclear power in the countries not covered in the Focus Countries sections.

[Note: This report was funded by the MacArthur Foundation, Natural Resources Defense Council, Heinrich Böll Foundation, the Greens-EFA Group in the European Parliament, Elektrizitätswerke Schönau, and the Swiss Renewable Energy Foundation, and additional funding by others, likely the oil & gas interests, the wind and solar industries, and other anti-nuclear commercial groups.]

Capacity Up, Production Down

• China passes France and becomes Number 2 in the World.
• As of mid-2021, 33 countries operated 415 nuclear reactors, up seven units compared to mid-2020—but still below mid-2019 and 23 fewer than the 2002 peak of 438.
• In 2020, globally, five reactors started up including first ones in Belarus and UAE – eight less than scheduled as of mid-2019. Six units closed.
  The total operating nuclear capacity increased by 1.9 percent from one year earlier to reach 369 GW as of mid-2021, a new mid-year peak just above the record of 367 GW in 2006.
• In 2020, nuclear power generation decreased—for the first time since 2012—by over 100 TWh or more than the individual national production of 28 of the 33 nuclear countries.
• Excluding China, nuclear power generation dropped to the lowest level since 1995. The nuclear share in the electricity mix in France dropped to the
  lowest level since 1985.
• For the first time, China generated more nuclear electricity than France and becomes the second largest nuclear generator in the world behind the United States.
• The mean age of the world’s nuclear fleet has increased steadily since 1984 and now stands at about 31 years with one in five units reaching 41 years or more.
• Nuclear energy’s share of global gross electricity generation continues its slow but steady decline from a peak of 17.5 percent in 1996 with a share of 10.1 percent in 2020.

China Continues to Dominate Domestic Nuclear Development… On a Lower Level

• Nuclear generation in China increased by 4.4 percent, the lowest growth rate since 2009.
• One third or 18 of the 53 units or 33% of the listed under construction in the world as of mid-2021 are in China. The global total remains well below the 69 units at the end of 2013.
• In 2020, construction began on five reactors globally including four in China and one in Turkey.
• China General Nuclear Corp. (CGN) abandoned nuclear export ambitions entirely.
• China missed its 5-Year nuclear targets of 58 GW installed and 30 GW under construction but expanded wind power capacity by over 70 GW and solar by almost 50 GW in 2020 alone.
• Russia is involved in 17 of the 53 construction projects in 8 of the 17 countries building

Chernobyl - 35 Years After the Disaster Began [For the rest of the story, see (here)]

• Most of the 6,800 thyroid-cancer patients of the first 20 years survived but at a high price.[Mostly children who drank contaminated milk survived with treatment]
• Food contamination persists in large areas of Europe, e.g. in Germany exceeding legal limits.[Detectable because of greater resolution ability, but not hazardous to health]
• A New Safe Confinement (NSC), an arch-like structure, covers Unit 4 since November 2016.
• Dismantling of Units 1–3, undamaged in 1986, is to take at least until 2065.
• Visitors to the Chernobyl site—the Ukrainian government seeks UN World Heritage status—went from 1,000 in 2004 to 200,000 in 2019. [Indicates almost all hazardous radiation is gone except at plant site]

Fukushima Status Report - Ten Years After [For the rest of the story, see (here)]

Onsite.

• The highly controversial plan to release more than 1 million m³ of contaminated water into the ocean is conditioned on re-processing at least 70 percent of the water and the dilution of all of it by a factor of 100. The operation would take at least three decades. [Tritium at very low levels, and that will get diluted. Sea-floor volcanoes produce much more radioactive contamination than Fukushima fire-fighting water.]

Health.

• As of July 2021, 218 persons— children at the time of exposure —were diagnosed with thyroid cancer. The number of cases is several dozen times higher than expected [Fact Check needed here. Suspect.]
• The cancer incidence amongst residents clearly increases with the level of environmental contamination. No health survey on any group of workers has been released.[Probable reason: No cases to report?]
• In total, the number of officially recognized “disaster-related deaths” following evacuation in the prefectures of Fukushima, Iwate, and Miyagi reached 3,717, of which almost two thirds in Fukushima [Fact Check Needed: No deaths at the plant and no one was irradiated at the plant. Deaths indicated likely from causes other than radiation.]. That is very high, considering its share of deaths due to earthquake and tsunami was only 10 percent. [What share? 10% of what?. Misleading and fact-check needed here].

Costs.

The Japanese government released a new cost estimate of the disaster tripling a 2012-estimate and reaching US$223.1 billion. An independent assessment established a range of US$322–758 billion largely depending on the kind of water and waste treatment and disposal.

Judicial.

Numerous legal cases have been filed and many are ongoing including a lawsuit to clarify the civil liability of TEPCO executives for the Fukushima disaster.

• Lawsuits have been filed against all operating reactors and restart attempts by nuclear operators except for one.
• As of April 2021, there have been eight court decisions that have suspended the operation of nuclear power plants.

Many Construction Delays Worsened and Construction Time of Latest Reactors Improved

• At least 31 of the 53 units under construction are behind schedule; 13 have reported increased delays and four have had documented delays for the first time over the past year.
• In 10 cases (19 percent), first construction starts date back a decade or more, including two units that had construction starts 36 years ago and one unit that goes back 45 years.

Nuclear Power and Criminal Energy

• The nuclear sector appears to have a problem of multiple forms of criminal activities.
• Some problems date back decades or have been ongoing for decades. Organized-crime organizations in Japan have been supplying workers to nuclear sites for over a decade.
• Serious insider sabotage has occurred in major nuclear countries (e.g. Belgium) in recent years.
• Transparency International’s 2020 Corruption Perceptions Index rates half of the 35 countries operating or constructing nuclear power plants on their territory below 50 out of 100.
• In the Bribery Payers Index, seven out of the ten worst rated countries amongst a total of 28 surveyed operate or are building nuclear power plants on their territory.

Renewables Continue to Thrive

• Total investment in new-renewable electricity exceeded US$300 billion again, 17 times the reported global investment decisions for nuclear power.
• Renewables proved highly resilient against the global pandemic and yet another record 256 GW of non-hydro renewables were added to the world’s power grids in 2020. Wind added 111 GW and solar 127 GW. Nuclear power added a net 0.4 GW (startups vs. closures).
• Since 2009, levelized cost estimates for utility-scale solar dropped by 90 percent, wind by 70 percent, while nuclear increased by 33 percent.
• In the European Union, renewables for the first time overtook fossil fuels to become the primary source of power in 2020 which is also the first year that non-hydro renewables generated more power than nuclear reactors.

REACTOR STARTUPS & CLOSURES

Startups. WNISR2019 noted 13 reactors scheduled for startup in 2020; only three of these units did so, while the other 10 were delayed at least into 2021. Two additional reactors started up that were not on the list. Four units were commissioned in the first half of 2021. The COVID-19 pandemic impacted some of the commissioning schedules.

Closures.¹

Six units were closed in 2020, two each in France and in the U.S., and one each in Russia and Sweden. In the first half of 2021, two units were closed, in Taiwan and in the U.S. Over the two decades 2001–2020, there were 95 startups and 98 closures in the world. As there were 47 startups and no closures in China over the period, the 98 closures outside China were only matched by 48 startups, a drastic decline by 50 units over the period.

Note 1 - WNISR accounts for closures in the respective years of last electricity generation and adjusts statistics retroactively if units have not
generated power in the year in review.

OPERATION & CONSTRUCTION DATA²

Reactor Operation and Production. As of 1 July 2021, 33 countries operated 415 nuclear reactors—excluding Long-Term Outages (LTOs)—up seven units compared to WNISR2020³ but still two below mid-2019, three less than in 1989 and 23 fewer than the 2002 peak of 438.

Two countries, Belarus and the United Arab Emirates, started up their first reactors. A total of 26 units were in LTO, five less than in WNISR2020, of which 24 in Japan and one each in India and South Korea, all of which are considered operating by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The total operating capacity increased by 1.9 percent from one year earlier to reach a record 369 GW as of mid-2021, just above the previous maximum of 367 GW in 2006.⁴

In 2020, nuclear power generation decreased for the first time since 2012 (by 104 TWh or 3.9 percent). Annual nuclear electricity generation declined to 2,553 net terawatt-hours (TWh or billion kilowatt-hours) in 2020, a 3.9 percent drop over the previous year. Outside of China, nuclear power generation dropped by 5.1 percent to the lowest level since 1995. For the first time, China generated more nuclear electricity than France.

The “big five” nuclear generating countries—by rank, the United States, China, France, Russia, and South Korea—generated 72 percent, the top three alone count for 58 percent of all nuclear electricity in the world in 2020.

Share in Electricity/Energy Mix.

Nuclear energy’s share of global gross electricity generation lost the 0.2-percentage-point increase of 2019 and returned to its slow but steady decline from
a peak of 17.5 percent in 1996 with a share of 10.1 percent in 2020. Nuclear power’s share of global commercial primary energy consumption has remained stable since 2014 at around 4.3 percent.

Reactor Age.

In the absence of major new-build programs, apart from China, the average age of the world operating nuclear reactor fleet continues to rise, and by mid-2021 reached 30.9 years. The mean age of the world’s fleet has been increasing since 1984. A total of 278 reactors, two-thirds of the world’s operating fleet, have operated for 31 or more years, including 89—more than one in five—that have operated for 41 years or more; six units have operated for 51 years or more.

Lifetime Projections.

If all currently operating reactors remained on the grid until the end of their licensed lifetime, including many that already hold authorized lifetime extensions (PLEX Projection), and all units under construction scheduled to have started up, an additional 123 reactors or 95 GW— one unit or 0.8 GW per month—would have to be started up or restarted prior to the end of 2030 in order to maintain the status quo. This would mean, in the current decade, the need to more than double the annual building rate of the past decade from 6 to 12. Construction starts are on a declining trend. The required number of new units might be even higher because many reactors are being shut down long before their licenses are terminated: the mean age at closure of the 23 units taken off the grids between 2016 and 2020 was 42.6 years.

_____________________FootNotes:
2 - See Focus Countries and Annex 1 for a country-by-country overview of reactors in operation and under construction as well as the
nuclear share in electricity generation.
3 - Unless otherwise noted, all figures indicated reflect the situation as of 1 July 2021.
4 - All figures are given for nominal net electricity generating capacity. GW stands for gigawatt or thousand megawatts.
________________________________

 Construction.

Seventeen countries are currently building nuclear power plants. As of 1 July 2021, 53 reactors were under construction—one more than WNISR reported for mid2020, but 16 fewer than in 2013—of which 18 are in China with with a total capacity of 17 GW. Total capacity under construction in the world increased by 0.5 GW to 54 GW. The current average time since work started at the 53 units under construction is 7 years compared to 7.3 years one year ago and 6.2 years as of mid-2017. Many units are still years away from completion.

⇒ All reactors under construction in at least 12 of the 17 countries have experienced, mostly year-long, delays. At least 31 of the building projects are delayed.

⇒  Of the 31 reactors clearly documented as behind schedule, at least 13 have reported increased delays and four have reported new delays over the past year.

⇒  Thirteen reactors were scheduled for startup during 2020, but only five did.

⇒  Construction starts of two projects date back 36 years. Firstly, Mochovce-3 and -4 in Slovakia, where their startup has been further delayed, currently to late 2021 and 2023 respectively. Secondly, Bushehr-2 originally started construction in 1976, 45 years ago, and resumed construction in 2019 after a 40-year-long suspension. Grid connection is currently scheduled for 2024.

⇒  Five additional reactors have been listed as “under construction” for a decade or more: the Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) and Kakrapar-4 in India, Olkiluoto-3 (OL3) in Finland, Shimane-3 in Japan, and Flamanville-3 (FL3) in France. The Finnish project has been further delayed this year, grid connections of the French and Indian units are likely to be postponed again, and the Japanese reactor does not even have a provisional startup
date.

⇒ Ten countries completed 63 reactors—with 37 in China—over the past decade, with an average time between construction start and grid connection of 10 years.

[Read on.... this report is 409 pages]

[For alternative perspectives, see (more) and (more)]