The actual growth and probable future of the worldwide nuclear industry

Worldwide nuclear power reactor manufacturing capacity will exceed worldwide demand by a factor of two or more during the 1980s. Only in France and the Soviet bloc countries is it likely that the ambitious nuclear power programs formulated in the mid-1970s will be implemented. In all other developed countries and in most developing countries, further delays and cancellations of previously announced programs are all but certain.The stalemate over the future of nuclear power is particularly deep in America. Administrative and personnel problems in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, slow progress on radioactive waste disposal by the Department of Energy, severe financial problems for most electric utilities, and drastic reductions in the rate of electricity demand growth combine to make continuation of the five-year-old moratorium on reactor orders inevitable. Many of the ninety plants under construction may never operate and some of the seventy in operation may shut down before the end of their economic life.Contrary to widespread belief, further oil price increases may not speed up worldwide reactor sales. It is possible that the world is heading for a “worst” of all possible outcomes: a large number of small nuclear power programs that do little to meet real energy needs but substantially complicate the problem of nuclear weapons proliferation.