How The U.S. Fell Behind China On Nuclear Power
BLM Moves to Fast-Track Oil Permits in Alaska Petroleum Reserve Haley Zaremba is an energy journalist and researcher with more than a decade of professional experience covering global energy systems, land and natural resources, and… The United States is the largest producer of nuclear power in the world, solely responsible for about one-third of global output.
has 96 operating commercial nuclear reactors in 57 power plants across 28 states.
However, while that fleet remains highly productive, the domestic nuclear sector is rapidly aging out.
All but two of the nation’s nuclear reactors are Gen II models, meaning they were constructed before the year 2000.
The average reactor age in the United States is 44, when the vast majority of those reactors were initially only licensed to run for 40 years.
In the past decade, the United States added just one nuclear power plant – Georgia’s controversial Plant Vogtle.
In the same time period, China added a staggering34 gigawattsof nuclear capacity.
At this rate, China is on track to overtake both France and the United States to become the world’s largest nuclear power producer within the next five years.
“By a wide margin, China will have the world’s most dynamic and significant nuclear industry through 2035,” Damien Ma, energy lead analyst for Gavekal Technologies, wrote in a recent report,as quoted bythe South China Morning Post in June.
“Construction efficiencies mean China can build a new plant in about six years, compared with more than a decade for the latest Vogtle reactors in the US,” Ma went on to say.
But why is the United States lagging so far behind China, especially when the Trump administration is so eager to “produce lasting American dominance in the global nuclear energy market”? Part of the reason is that the United States is out of practice, with a workforce that no longer knows how to build a nuclear power plant.
Another reason is the miles and miles of red tape and regulatory hurdles that it takes to get a new reactor plan off the ground under the oversight of the (understandably cautious) Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
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