Nuclear Generation Capacity Drops in 2011
After reaching an all-time high in 2010, this year the nuclear power capacity—the amount of electricity that all the world’s nuclear power plants can produce—took a dip.
(Related: World Electricity Mix Interactive)
The earthquake-tsunami disaster at the Fukushima power plants in Japan, which are still being cleaned up, led many to sour on nuclear energy. Soon afterward, Germany and Switzerland decided to completely phase out their nuclear plants within a few decades, and some of Germany’s oldest nuclear plants were shut down indefinitely. All together, 13 nuclear plants shut down in the first 10 months of 2011, according to a new report by the Worldwatch Institute. Construction of new nukes also slowed, with 16 plants getting started in