Nuclear companies are struggling worldwide, with the exception of China, where new nuclear reactors are being built with eyes closed to safety. The news of Japanese multinational Toshiba's farewell to the construction of new reactors is merely the most recent of the many signals of the difficulties facing a sector that is coming up against the problems of safety, waste storage, and ever-rising construction costs and raw material procurement costs.

Nuclear energy's slow growth

At a global level, the nuclear energy sector has shown signs of stagnation over the past 20 years. According to data from the World Nuclear Association and the International Atomic Energy Agency, global nuclear capacity has grown by 12.7 per cent over the last 20 years and by 5.7 per cent over the last ten years. But these figures have been judged misleading, as they include in their calculation the contribution of reactors now inactive in Japan, as Steve Kidd, former executive of the World Nuclear Association, has pointed out. The "World Nuclear Industry Status Report", published in July 2016, attempts to redo the calculation, excluding 34 inactive reactors in Japan, Taiwan and Sweden. By its calculations, current nuclear capacity has grown by 1.7 per cent over the last 20 years and has decreased by 4.6 per cent over the last ten years.

China, first in nuclear power at the expense of safety

The weak growth in nuclear energy production is down to the contribution of a single country: China. According to the "World Nuclear Industry Status Report", global production increased by 1.3 per cent, thanks exclusively to the 31 per cent rise recorded in China. Of the ten reactors brought online in 2015, eight are Chinese, all built before the Fukushima disaster.

The country also holds another record. With 35 activatable reactors, 22 under construction and many others in the pipeline, China remains the only country to have defined significant nuclear expansion plans. A growth that carries within it a sinister element: the fear that a new serious nuclear accident could occur. This prospect is all the more likely owing to China's inadequate safety standards, deficient regulation, lack of transparency, and insurance and liability arrangements that are the worst in the world. He Zuoxiu, one of China's leading scientists, had already warned in 2015: "Over the past four years there have been internal discussions about improving standards, but this would require far greater investment that could undermine the competitiveness and profitability of nuclear power. Nuclear energy costs are cheap because we have lowered our standards."

Europe's nuclear giants in crisis

In July 2016, 127 reactors were operating across 28 countries of wider Europe, accounting for roughly one third of the global total, although since the peak of 177 units reached in 1989 numbers have fallen by 16 in the wake of the Fukushima accident. European nuclear power is generally in poor health: in Europe, energy giants such as French companies EDF and Engie, German companies E.ON and RWE, and Swedish company Vattenfall, as well as utilities TVO in Finland and CEZ in the Czech Republic, have all been downgraded by rating agencies compared to last year. And all the utilities have recorded heavy losses on the stock market. French company AREVA has accumulated €10 billion in losses over the past five years. Standard & Poor downgraded its shares to BB+ in November 2014, before dropping to BB- in March 2015. The company is on the brink of collapse, and state utility EDF is attempting to support it, although the rescue plan has not been approved by the European Commission.

The nuclear giants today find themselves having to contend with no shortage of problems, as stated in the "World Nuclear Industry Status Report". Many utilities based on traditional programmes tied to nuclear power and fossil fuels are now grappling with a dramatic fall in wholesale energy prices, a shrinking customer base, declining energy consumption, high debt burdens, rising production costs at ageing facilities, and fierce competition coming above all from renewable sources. The need to rethink an energy model no longer based on old systems, but looking increasingly to distributed generation from renewable sources — which have by now become economically competitive with fossil fuels — is plain to see.

The failed nuclear renaissance in the US

In the United States too, the so-called nuclear renaissance for full-size reactors appears to be reaching its terminus. Although the nuclear industry notched up a couple of victories last year, persuading the states of New York and Illinois to shell out billions to keep some ageing nuclear reactors running, the number of operable reactors has declined in recent years from 104 to 99. A slow decline that will in all likelihood continue in the years ahead, given the age of the reactors: 44 out of 99 have 40 or more years of operation behind them.

And it is news of recent days that Japanese multinational Toshiba, which entered the nuclear market in 2005, is expected to bid farewell to the construction of new reactors, withdrawing from the nuclear energy business, brought down by billions of dollars in losses and write-downs accumulated over recent years. A deficit attributable to delays and cost overruns on nuclear power plant construction projects carried out in the United States, which could reach 9.1 billion US dollars.

Fourth-generation nuclear power that never takes off

A few years ago, nuclear power seemed poised for a new spring thanks to fourth-generation reactors — entirely innovative systems that promised to reuse waste as new fuel, solving at a stroke the problems of uranium supply and cost and of the disposal, storage and decommissioning of radioactive debris. But things turned out differently, and today talking about the fourth generation is like talking about a technological fantasy.

In the meantime, we are still trying to manage the problems associated with third-generation projects. "Costly delays, growing complexity and new safety requirements in the wake of the Fukushima accident are conspiring to thwart a new era of nuclear reactor construction," writes Bloomberg. The so-called "Generation III+ reactors" were supposed to have a simple design and safety features suited to avoiding the kind of disaster seen in Japan almost six years ago. Instead, the new reactors under construction conflict with stricter regulations and impractical designs, are accumulating construction delays, and are raising doubts about whether the innovations are too complex and costly to achieve without state aid.

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